Phaze Raises $8.75M Seed Round Led by a16z

The New York City startup offers low-latency remote workstations that let people and AI agents work together in shared sessions.

Updated on Nov. 4, 2026 in Remote Work

Phaze Raises $8.75M Seed Round Led by a16z

Phaze, a New York City startup with about ten employees, raised an $8.75 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with Indie, NextView, Makers, and Lerer Hippeau also taking part. The company was founded in 2024 and began rolling out beta releases in 2026.

Why it matters

Phaze streams a remote high-performance workstation to a modest local machine, offering an alternative as reported hardware costs have climbed to three times higher. Shared high-end machines can serve as a workaround to expensive per-employee workstations for teams in the city and beyond.

Phaze's $8.75 million seed round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with a team of roughly ten employees. Reported hardware costs have reportedly climbed to three times higher, though the source does not give the baseline period for that comparison.

The players

Andreessen Horowitz

Andreessen Horowitz is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California, known for backing a broad range of software and technology startups.

Phaze

Phaze is a New York City startup that provides low-latency remote access to high-performance workstations for people and AI agents.

The details

Phaze streams a remote workstation to a user's local machine and supports shared sessions where a person and an AI agent work inside the same remote session in real time. The product also supports model context protocol servers for background agent tasks and includes centralized management and audit logging for enterprise IT teams.

2024: Phaze was founded.
2026: Phaze started rolling out beta releases.
November 4, 2026: Phaze announced the $8.75 million seed funding.

Remote Work Context

Phaze's founders, Benjy Boxer and Chris Dickson, previously built Parsec, and Phaze applies that remote-streaming workstation model to shared human and AI agent sessions. The approach responds to reported hardware cost increases that make shared high-end machines a workaround to per-employee workstations.

Teams that rely on expensive per-employee workstations could find shared remote machines a lower-cost option if the streamed setup meets their performance needs. Enterprise buyers would also gain centralized management and audit logging for IT oversight.

The takeaway

Shared, streamed workstations are emerging as one response to rising hardware costs, and teams weighing that option should check how well remote performance and agent integration fit their workflows. The product remains early, with beta releases only beginning in 2026.