SpaceTime: nuke-proof AI storage

cyber•Fund proudly backs SpaceTime – a transformative, highly distributed software-defined storage platform purpose-built for sovereign AI workloads.

Product

SpaceTime’s distributed software-defined storage architecture is designed for AI workloads, delivering performance and cost efficiency that traditional cloud vendors struggle to match. By intelligently spreading data across many nodes (including on-prem and edge locations), SpaceTime can aggregate throughput and reduce latency for AI workloads. The result is object storage at cloud scale, but with LAN-speed access – a critical advantage when training models that churn through millions of files.

SpaceTime currently operates a 70-petabyte storage solution that tackles enterprises' biggest data challenges:

• Cross-Datacenter Flexibility: SpaceTime enables organizations to dynamically shift workloads across geographical boundaries, offering a 10x improvement over legacy, siloed systems.
• Superior Performance, Exceptional Value: Achieving premium-tier performance at dramatically lower costs, SpaceTime reduces total cost of ownership by 30-50% compared to leading cloud providers and 60-80% against traditional storage solutions.
• Compliance: The proliferation of region-specific data regulations (GDPR, CCPA, China's PIPL) is creating complexity that traditional architectures struggle to address. SpaceTime simplifies compliance management, directly addressing a critical enterprise pain point.
• Decentralized Data Sovereignty: By employing battle-tested decentralized protocols, enterprises gain unparalleled control over data, ensuring sovereignty, resilience, and flexibility in a complex regulatory environment.

Team 

SpaceTime was founded by veterans in the datacenter and distributed storage. Team’s leadership blends entrepreneurial success, deep technical proficiency, and extensive industry experience:

• Antti Pennanen, CEO: Multiple startup exits (Anima Vitae, Basemotion, MONI); a decade-plus innovating in datacenter infrastructure (e.g., Bitfury).
• Taneli Tikka, COO: Decades of startup leadership with high-profile exits including Unity (IPO), Amazon, and Telia; former innovation chief at TietoEvry and CEO of a €3.5B state-owned investment fund.
• Joonas Mäkinen, Head of Production: Over two decades of technical expertise in data centers and telecom integrations across 40 telcos globally.

Market 

Current public LLMs were trained on 1-20T tokens, while probably any Fortune 100 company generates 100B-10T tokens per day internally. The growth in AI directly translates to an explosion of storage requirements: enterprises are collecting petabytes of training data, model checkpoints, and inference outputs. In fact, the software-defined storage market is projected to grow from $50B to $500B in the next decade, while AI-related storage is projected to grow from $25B to $250B for the same period of time, which potentially results in the highest growth synergy in the storage market.

Beyond raw economics, SpaceTime is surfing a geopolitical tailwind: the urgent need for sovereign European cloud infrastructure. Under GDPR, EU personal data faces strict residency and privacy rules, while the U.S. CLOUD Act (2018) allows U.S. authorities to access data held by American tech companies even if that data resides in Europe.

Conviction

SpaceTime combines the global distribution and cost advantages seen in decentralized systems with the robustness and support expected from enterprise vendors.

Our investment conviction is driven by the strategic alignment between SpaceTime's robust technical capabilities, exceptional team and the urgent market shifts towards decentralized, flexible, and compliant storage solutions.

The timing is exceptional – SpaceTime is entering the market as the Al sector expands, creating significant storage demands, while geopolitical tensions and data sovereignty concerns are driving European enterprises to seek alternatives to US-based cloud providers and hyperscalers. 

When a highly experienced team with a proven track record builds and successfully operates a 70PB infrastructure serving demanding enterprise customers -- it makes us act.