Rainway

Rainway was a real-time interactive streaming company founded in 2017 in Atlanta and later headquartered in Seattle. Its first product was a remote-desktop-based video game streaming service for Microsoft Windows that let users stream locally installed applications and games from a Windows PC to other devices over a local network or the internet. The client ran in modern web browsers and on iOS and Android phones, with a short-lived Xbox One client; the service worked with games purchased from Steam, Origin, Battle.net, itch.io, GOG.com and Uplay. The iOS app was restricted to local-network streaming because of Apple's policies toward game streaming.

The company later productized the underlying technology as the Rainway SDK, a beta developer toolkit for building streamed applications. Host and client devices connect through the Rainway Network and establish a direct peer-to-peer session, with the SDK handling secure connections, low-latency media streaming, adaptation to device capability and network conditions, input processing and web components. Beyond gaming, Rainway marketed the technology for secure thin-client deployments in settings such as hospitals and banks, and began building Rainway App Services and Instant Apps, which host desktop applications in Rainway's data centers so they can be used inside a web browser.

Rainway's streaming technology was also licensed to Microsoft for use in Xbox Cloud Gaming. The company ceased operations, with a shutdown announcement from its founder in October 2022.

Founding story

Co-founders Andrew Sampson and Evan Banyash first built Ulterius, an open-source platform for managing any computer from a web browser. Observing that users were adopting it mainly for video games, and after a conversation at PAX East with a gamer disappointed by a watered-down mobile version of a PC title, they pivoted to game streaming and founded Rainway in 2017. Sampson, who also founded Aurous, had dropped out of high school and taught himself to code after becoming homeless around the 2008 recession.

Business model

Rainway operated a software business built on its own streaming technology. Its original consumer product, later called Rainway Gaming, was free to users, with a premium tier planned as of 2018. The company subsequently packaged the technology as a developer SDK and cloud services (Rainway App Services, Instant Apps), letting developers and organizations embed interactive streaming in their own applications or push desktop applications into Rainway's data center for browser-based use, and partnered with a large platform holder (Microsoft) to license its streaming technology.

The consumer product was offered free with a planned premium tier; later revenue avenues centered on developer-facing SDK and cloud application services and technology licensing to platform partners.

Traction

Rainway grew from an 8-person startup during Techstars Seattle in early 2018 to roughly 15 employees by September 2021, shipped clients across Windows, browsers, iOS, Android and Xbox One between 2018 and 2020, and signed a partnership with Microsoft to supply streaming technology for Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Latest developments

Following the 2021 Microsoft partnership and a strategic shift toward desktop application streaming services, founder Andrew Sampson announced the shutdown of Rainway in October 2022. The company was subsequently listed as out of business as of mid-2025. Public documentation for the Rainway SDK remains available and reflects a beta-stage product supporting Windows-to-browser streaming.