DAWN, a decentralized protocol designed to provide user-owned and operated multi-gigabit broadband services, announced that it has raised $13 million in a Series B funding round led by Polychain Capital.
According to an announcement shared with CoinDesk on Thursday, the funding will be used to expand the Solana-based protocol’s network reach across the United States and develop international deployments.
The New York-based project allows individuals and organizations to deploy wireless nodes that act as network hosts and provide Internet access. Hosts earn compensation based on coverage quality and demand. This model aims to avoid the centralized ownership structures that dominate traditional broadband and instead distribute infrastructure ownership to the network edge.
The funding highlights investor interest in bringing decentralization to real-world services, an approach known as Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (DePIN).
DAWN is not alone in identifying its communications as a DePIN application. Another notable project, Helium, allows users to set up hot spots to function as small mobile sites. The platform is also built on Solana and expanded into the Brazilian market this month in partnership with local WiFi provider Mambo.
DAWN serves more than 4 million households in the United States, but its first international expansion in Accra, Ghana, targets underserved neighborhoods where fiber adoption has proven slow and expensive to deploy.
The project also introduced consumer hardware, including Black Box devices that also function as routers and distributed infrastructure nodes. The device supports multiple blockchain ecosystems, allowing households to directly participate in broadband delivery while earning rewards.
