Edge computing cloud and global data network Macrometa has raised $38 million in funding led by Akamai Technologies, as the two announce a new partnership and product integration. The funding includes participation by Shasta Ventures and 60 Degrees Capital. Akamai Labs CTO Andy Champagne joins Macrometa’s board.
Macrometa founder and CEO Chetan Venkatesh told TechCrunch that GDN enables cloud developers to run back-end services near mobile phones, browsers, smart devices, connected cars and users in edge regions or point of presence (PoP). This minimizes downtime because if one edge region goes down, the other can take over instantly. The Akamai Edge network, on the other hand, covers 4,200 regions worldwide.
The partnership between Macrometa and Akamai means the two are consolidating three infrastructure components into one platform for cloud developers: Akamai’s Edge Network, cloud hosting service Linode (which Akamai bought earlier this year) and Macrometa’s Global Data Network (GDN) and Edge Cloud. Akamai Edge Workers Tech is now available through Macrometa’s GDN console, API, and SDK, so developers can build a cloud application or API in Macrometa and then quickly deploy it to Akamai Edge locations.
Venkatesh gave some examples of how customers can take advantage of the integration between Macrometa and Akamai.
For SaaS customers, the integration means they can see between 25x to 100x speed increases and latency improvements for their products, resulting in better user engagement and better conversion rates for freemium models. By using a shared solution, enterprise customers can improve the performance of data pipelines and real-time data analytics. They can also handle residency and sovereignty issues by hiding and anonymizing data to comply with geo-restricted databases.
Video streaming customers use the integration to power their platforms, including authentication, content cataloging, personalization and content recommendations. Similarly, game companies can migrate servers to players and use Akamai-MacroMeta integration for features such as player matching, leaderboards, multiplayer game lobbies, and anti-stealing features. For e-commerce players competing with Amazon, the joint solution can be used to connect and distribute information from local stores and fulfillment centers, enabling faster delivery times.
Macrometa will use the funds for developer education, community development, enterprise event marketing, and joint sales to customers with Akamai (Macrometa products are now available through Akamai’s sales team).
Akamai EVP and CTO Robert Blumoff said in a statement about the funding and partnership, “It will fundamentally change the way developers build, deploy and manage enterprise applications. Speed and scale are more important than ever, but flexibility in workloads is now even more important. By partnering with and investing in Macrometa, Akamai is helping to create and grow a single platform that meets the evolving needs of developers and the applications they create.
