Everybody loves an underdog, especially in the venture capital community. DigitalOcean Inc. has seized that sentiment once again to raise a massive $83 million in funding for its namesake public cloud, which climbed to the second spot on the list of the world’s largest infrastructure-as-a-service platforms over the last two years.

That rapid ascent, remarkable even by the standards of one of the fastest growing segments in the industry, can be credited to simple but powerful value proposition consisting of two main elements, the first and perhaps most notable of which pricing. Or more specifically, a competitive entry cost.

While DigitalOcean – still very much a startup despite its outsized market position – can’t match the economies of scale offered by its bigger rivals, its platform enables developers to consume infrastructure in small units that are provisioned to provide the biggest bang for the buck in their tier. That’s the result of a competitive balance of processing power, storage and bandwidth as well as, no less importantly, ease of use.

That’s the second major dimension of DigitalOcean’s value proposition, with its instances providing the option to pre-install popular technologies such as Docker and the ability to switch between hourly and monthly billing models depending on which is cheaper, among other conveniences. The combination of that simplicity and the attractive pricing has made the platform a hit among developers, who have provisioned more than six million Droplets – as the company refers to its instances – to date.

But while enough to catapult DigitalOcean to the runner up position behind Amazon Web Services (AWS), all that activity is still only accounted for by about 500,000 out of the roughly 25 million developers practicing their craft worldwide that the company sees as its total addressable market. The new funding from Access Industries, notable for its investments in web giants such as Facebook Inc. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., and existing backer Andreessen Horowitz, should help bridge that gap.

In particular, DigitalOcean co-founder and chief exec Ben Uretsky told SiliconANGLE that the capital will be used to “dramatically” increase its headcount and expand to more locations. Having already established a presence throughout the US and Western Europe, the company is now considering to set up shop in smaller markets such as Canada with somewhat underserved developer communities.

In total, DigitalOcean has raised more than $170 million to date. This latest capital infusion comes less than a year and a half after Andreessen Horowitz led a $37.2 million round in the startup.

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