[gaffneyc]

I'm a pretty happy Fly.io customer and glad to see the direction things have been going overall. While it's great to see Fly is getting more resources to continue improving and building the business I worry about the inevitable VC Countdown Clock to Exit.

What does this new round mean for Fly's long term independence?

[mrkurt]

I don't think we can build a company like this without a lot of money.

We're to the point where we're making $10-25mm capital expenditures in one go. And we have to to optimize our own costs. Optimizing our own costs means long term independence.

What I think I've learned about VCs is: the trick to long term independence is to find investors who already value the sales mechanism. Bottoms up, dev focused "sales" is something investors like, now (this was not true in 2012).