Framework Ventures says it has led a $10 million investment round in Uplink, a DePIN network with a goal to democratize access to the internet.
Framework Ventures thinks their enterprise-focused approach is the best bet for onboarding the next wave of DePIN users.
Uplink explaisn that it is building a decentralized telco network, tokenizing connectivity.
They’re building an ecosystem “that empowers and incentivizes people to develop a farther, faster, and cheaper network.”
In return, Uplinkers are said to be “rewarded with ULX tokens, support the rapidly growing IoT market, and unlock new business opportunities.”
Carlos Lei Santos, CEO at Uplink, says that the connectivity market is “changing, fast, and the world’s connectivity demands just keep on growing.”
He adds that current connectivity infrastructure is “not enough for such demand, and building and deploying new one is a long complicated feat for most providers.”
He further noted:
“Also, connectivity needs are different from device to device, from system to system, from user to user. There are multiple connectivity protocols for different needs, each one serving it’s own purpose, serving devices with different connectivity needs (eg. WiFi, 5G, Lora etc). At the same time, technology is evolving. Connectivity infrastructure is getting smaller, cheaper. Alliances are being formed, more technologies are becoming interoperable.”
He pointed out that there’s one thing missing: distribution, coverage.
This is the perfect use case for example, and this is what they’re solving at Uplink.
At Uplink, they aim to “create financial incentives to distribute software and hardware, ensure uptime and coverage, and identify underserved areas and expand network coverage.”
He concluded:
“We believe in traction first. Most DePIN projects have taken a retail-focused approach to initial distribution. At Uplink, they prioritizing large enterprise partnerships for initial distribution. We believe fleet deployments should come from real connectivity needs We’re not starting today. We started Uplink and have been in the connectivity business since 2016, and for the past couple years we’ve been heads down building, deploying, testing our systems and our assumptions with real customers, real enterprises and real traction. This announcement is the first in a series of upcoming announcements, as we get ready to finally show the world what we’ve been up to.”
