Storj Labs, a distributed cloud storage provider, has raised $3 million in a seed financing round to advance its open source, distributed cloud storage platform, Storj (pronounced "storage”).

According to the official release, angel investors in the blockchain-based cloud storage platform include venture capitalists from Qualcomm Ventures and Techstars, as well as security executives from Ionic Security, Cockroach Labs and Pindrop Security.

Data centers, which serve as the hub of cloud storage capabilities for cloud giants like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, come with a high price tag for developers, providers and users. From physical servers and networking equipment to other infrastructure demands like electricity, cloud service providers spend billions of dollars every quarter just to maintain or grow their service offerings.

Storj provides the first decentralized, end-to-end encrypted cloud storage solution to use blockchain technology and cryptography to secure files. By creating a shared community of "farmers" (users who rent out their spare hard drive space and bandwidth), it creates a peer-to-peer network that is more secure, up to 10x faster and 50 percent less expensive than traditional data center-based cloud storage solutions, the release said.

Storj allows users to store data in a secure and decentralized manner. It uses blockchain features like a transaction ledger, public/private key encryption, and cryptographic hash functions for security so that users don't have to assume the risk of censorship or hacking as with data centers.

"Storj aims to revolutionize cloud storage by putting the user back in control over their devices and their data," said Shawn Wilkinson, co-founder, CEO and CTO of Storj Labs. "The decentralized aspect of Storj means there are no central servers to be compromised, and because of the use of client-side encryption, only the end users have access to their unencrypted files and encryption keys."

Storj currently touts a community of over 7,500 farmers and more than 15,000 API users worldwide. It has cemented a channel partnership with Heroku, a cloud platform that enables developers to build, run, and operate applications entirely in the cloud. With this partnership, Storj can provide developers with a distributed object storage solution with effortless encryption, optimal speed and easy implementation.

Furthermore, Storj Labs was recently awarded a grant by the Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) to help advance its technology. The funding is part of a grant program hosted by the GOED's Technology Commercialization and Innovation Program (TCIP) which will also give Storj access to free mentorship at BoomStartup, a startup accelerator founded in 2010.