Arkstream Capital: Why We Invest in IO.Net
ArkStream is proud to be an early investor in @IONet, one of our top bets in the #AI #DePIN sector, built on the @Solana ecosystem. Our thesis:
1/ The sector: #AI will continue to be the world’s hottest growth bet for many years to come. Computing power is an increasingly scarce commodity as demand sustainably outpaces supply.
2/ The shortage in computing power is felt in two ways, as AI penetration of the world grows both vertically and horizontally. And of course, the envied NVDA rally that even dimmed the sparkle of Bitcoin.
3/ Vertically: Bigger is always better. Tech giants are in a red-hot arms race to train LLMs with more parameters and thus require greater GPU computing power. They are happy to splurge billions to get in the front line with Nvidia and price out smaller startups.
4/ Horizontally: countless AI startups and products try to bring the tech into millions of use cases: recommenders, education, personal health, medical research, supply chain, etc. In the AI-powered industrial revolution, GPU is the new oil.
5/ #DePIN is crypto’s answer to the burning global GPU shortage. By leveraging crypto’s power to coordinate global human coordination, we can bring online humanity’s dormant computing power on a massive scale.
6/ 🌟 Enter IO.Net , the Airbnb of GPUs. Leveraging the Solana blockchain, it offers a decentralized platform for sharing otherwise idle GPU infra in data centers, crypto farms, gaming computers, and many more.
7/ IO.Net was founded by Ahmad Shadid, an ML-powered HFT fund manager who personally put up with the high cost and complex bureaucracy of traditional cloud-based computing power and decided to build a systemic alternative.
8/ For customers, IONet provides 90% cost reduction, permissionless onboarding, and instant deployment. This is a great value prop for Web2 and Web 3AI startups who can’t afford the time and money cost of AWS’s long processes.
9/ For providers, IONet’s soon-to-launch IO token provides extra bootstrapping incentives to put GPU computing power together towards IONet’s goal of 1 million connected GPUs, making itself a credible challenger to the centralized cloud.
10/ IONet distinguishes itself from other DePIN compute projects by solely focusing on GPUs — the AI compute. Among its GPU compute peers, IONet’s GPU network leads by a margin of 100-to-1.
11/ For a ballpark comparison, Google and Amazon’s supercomputers today typically have 20,000–50,000 GPUs. We know there are further caveats and technical challenges — but IONet’s 30,000 GPUs are a promising step in a great direction.
12/ IONet is more than just the number of its GPUs. It is the first GPU DePIN project to incorporate state-of-the-art ML tech stacks such as Ray clusters, Kubernetes clusters, and mega clusters to enable truly powerful model training.
13/ IONet’s ambitious engineering team will further bring the network’s GPU capacity to 500,000 concurrent GPUs, rivaling the offering of centralized cloud providers at a fraction of the cost.
14/ IONet has established strong partnerships with leading DePIN and AI players including render_network, filecoin, @ritualnet, Solana foundation, and Solana pay to establish itself as a pivotal player in the field.
15/ We are proud to invest alongside an all-star cap table. Hack VC Multicoin MH Ventures OKX Ventures Aptos Labs Toly from Solana Solana Ventures 6th Man Ventures Amber Group Modular Capital SevenX Foresight Longhash Animoca Brands Delphi Digital
16/ We’re excited about IONet’s upcoming token launch in April 2024. We will continue to support IONet’s growth with our compute infrastructure and ecosystem connections.
17/ ArkStream Capital invests in great founders, ideas, technology, and products in AI, DePIN, and many other areas as outlined in our Nine Alpha Predictions for 2024. Stay connected.
ArkStream Capital is a crypto fund founded by native cryptocurrency professionals, encompassing primary market and liquidity strategies. It invests in the most native and cutting-edge innovations in Web3, dedicated to fostering the growth of Web3 unicorns. The ArkStream Capital team, with members from prestigious institutions and companies such as MIT, Stanford, UBS, Accenture, Tencent, and Google, entered the cryptocurrency field in 2015. Their investment portfolio includes over 80 blockchain companies, such as AAVE, Filecoin, FLOW, Pocket, Manta, Sei, and Polyhedra.
Website: https://arkstream.capital/
Medium: https://arkstreamcapital.medium.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ark_stream
