This publication is provided by the client. The text below is a paid press release that is not part of Cointelegraph.com independent editorial content. The text has undergone editorial review to ensure quality and relevance, it may not reflect the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.com. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the company. Disclosure.
New coalition-backed capital fuels the repurposing of industrial mining fleets to power AAA gaming inside Telegram and Discord; repatriating power from Big Tech back to the people.
February 13, 2026, Press release – YOM, the DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) gaming protocol disrupting the forecasted $121B cloud gaming market, today announced the closing of a $3M strategic funding round featuring the Avalanche Foundation alongside institutional infrastructure and DePIN investors.
This latest tranche brings YOM’s total capital raised to over $4M, combining fresh strategic capital with continued conviction from earlier backers Borderless Capital and Outlier Ventures. The new round establishes a "Coalition of Compute" featuring institutional infrastructure and DePIN investors, including CV VC, Protein Capital, and Blockraise.
Notably, the round includes strategic participation from Simms International, a leading specialist in memory and data storage technology, and a privately held APAC high-performance industrial compute operator. This coalition signals a massive industrial shift as hardware providers and industrial mining fleets pivot capacity toward high-fidelity rendering.
The new capital will fast-track the development of YOM’s sovereign Layer-1 (L1) mainnet on the Avalanche blockchain and fuels the expansion and adoption of YOM’s pixelstreaming network. This culminates in a new over-the-top (post-)cloud gaming platform. Beyond offering standard game passes, this platform opens up the model entirely; allowing AAA games to be embedded directly inside Telegram, Discord, and advertising networks via a single URL.
Defeating the speed of light
YOM’s network acts as a Compute Coordination Engine for running and streaming entire games to the end-user. To achieve this at scale, YOM will utilize its own L1 blockchain architecture that functions like a foreign exchange market for processing power. By pairing regional tokens against one another, the network enables dynamic, localized price discovery. This ensures that compute costs reflect real-time local supply and demand, much like national currencies, rather than forcing a rigid global price on diverse economic regions. While general-purpose blockchains struggle with this level of complexity and throughput, YOM’s architecture is foundational for scaling economically robust DePINs.
“We are effectively entering the Post-Cloud Era,” said Jorrit Velzeboer, CEO of YOM. “While US tech giants correctly predicted that gamers would 'rent power', their centralized model is hitting a hard physical limit. You cannot negotiate with the speed of light; concentrating compute in distant data centers makes true low-latency impossible. The end game is “decentralized Edge”. By repatriating compute from big tech to a sovereign network of local devices, we are solving latency at the first-principle level whilst also reclaiming digital independence from Silicon Valley. This cuts lag to under 10ms and reduces costs by 93%, enabling experiences like instant-play inside social apps that were previously impossible.”
The industrial pivot: From mining to rendering
The inclusion of major infrastructure operators addresses the hardest challenge in DePIN: supply stability. As Bitcoin mining margins compress and geopolitical tensions regarding data residency rise, YOM provides a neutral, high-yield "bridge" for miners to transition into AI and Cloud Gaming workloads.
Lukas Etter, Co-CIO of CV VC, added: “We back teams that build real products with measurable utility and social economic impact. YOM creates impact in Digital Sovereignty and Social Mobility. As regions seek to reduce reliance on centralized hyperscalers, YOM offers a more performant, and politically neutral alternative that also brings economic value back to the people.”
Unlike centralized "Web2 relics" that require high margins to sustain expensive mortgages on server farms, YOM operates with “ Zero-CapEx scaling” using peer-to-peer networks to use already existing and otherwise idle computers. This allows the protocol to out-compete centralized models like GeForce Now, which are closed platforms that typically offer no streaming revenue to developers. YOM creates a new revenue stream, offering up to 100% revenue share on streaming time to Publishers, whilst allowing the games to be pushed and shared to any other channel, network or platform.
Operational milestones & traction
The investment follows a series of technical and commercial breakthroughs for YOM, validating the network's ability to service AAA content:
Testnet: Live in 20+ regions, achieving a median latency of
Adoption: Successful deployment of "Instant Play" embeds, allowing high-fidelity games to be streamed directly inside Telegram, Discord, advertising networks and websites via a single URL.YOM’s OTT (post-)cloud gaming platform in development has commitment from over 40 game studios and publishers signed, representing a pipeline of 100+ titles.
Recognition: Winner of the "Gamescom 2025 Game Tech Start-Up of the Year" award. YOM also received the “Seal of Excellence” from the EU European Innovation Council (EIC) and is a standout candidate for the UKIE Rising Star award.
About YOM
YOM is the first DePIN protocol for cloud gaming, enabling "Xbox-quality" experiences on any device, anywhere. By coordinating a global network of gaming machines and mining fleets, YOM eliminates the need for consoles and expensive downloads. The protocol is backed by industry leaders including the Avalanche Foundation, Borderless Capital, and Outlier Ventures.
About the Avalanche Foundation
The Avalanche Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the development and growth of the Avalanche ecosystem. Through initiatives like the infraBUIDL(AI) Program, the Foundation fosters innovation and collaboration in the blockchain and AI sectors.
