Despite the rapid expansion of AI, businesses frequently squander significant amounts of expensive computing power. GPUs remain inactive, workloads are excessively provisioned, and cloud expenses continue to escalate. ScaleOps contends that the core issue is not a scarcity of resources, but rather inefficient management.
The company, which develops software to automatically manage and reallocate computing resources in real-time, announced on Monday that it has raised $130 million in Series C funding, achieving an $800 million valuation. Insight Partners led the round, with additional investments from existing backers including Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX, Glilot Capital Partners, and Picture Capital. ScaleOps states its software can reduce cloud and AI infrastructure costs by up to 80%.
Yodar Shafrir, a former engineer at Run:ai, a GPU orchestration startup acquired by Nvidia, co-founded ScaleOps in 2022. His experience at Run:ai revealed the challenges companies faced in managing increasingly complex AI workloads. While tools like Kubernetes aid in running applications across large machine clusters, their reliance on static configurations often fails to adapt to fluctuating demand, leading to underutilized GPUs, performance bottlenecks, and costly inefficiencies.
“In my previous role [at Run:ai], I interacted with numerous customers, particularly DevOps teams,” Shafrir, who is the CEO, explained to TechCrunch. “While they valued Run:ai’s offerings, they still struggled with managing their production workloads, especially as AI inference workloads grew more prevalent. Upon broader reflection, I realized the problem extended beyond just GPUs to compute, memory, storage, and networking. The same patterns of inefficient resource management by teams were constantly recurring.”
DevOps teams frequently found themselves engaging multiple stakeholders to resolve issues, often with limited success. Most existing tools provided insights into problems but did not offer tangible solutions. This void presented a substantial market opportunity.
Shafrir stated that ScaleOps bridges application requirements with infrastructure decisions in real-time, delivering a fully autonomous solution for end-to-end infrastructure management.
“Kubernetes is an excellent, flexible, and highly configurable system. However, this flexibility also presents a challenge,” Shafrir noted. “Kubernetes heavily depends on static configurations. Modern applications are inherently dynamic, necessitating constant manual adjustments across teams. What’s needed is a system that comprehends the context of each application — its demands, behavior, and environmental changes.”
This sector includes several other companies, such as Cast AI, Kubecost, and Spot. While many firms have introduced automation tools, the CEO highlighted that these often operate without complete context, potentially leading to performance problems and even downtime, thereby eroding trust among teams managing production environments.
The startup emphasizes that its platform was developed specifically for production environments from the ground up. It is fully autonomous, context-aware, and functions out-of-the-box without requiring manual configuration — capabilities the company believes set ScaleOps apart from its competitors.
Headquartered in New York, ScaleOps serves enterprise clients globally, particularly those utilizing Kubernetes-based infrastructure, with its reach extending to large organizations and companies across Europe and India. ScaleOps reports that its platform is employed by a variety of enterprise customers, including Adobe, Wiz, DocuSign, Salesforce, and Coupa.
This Series C funding follows approximately a year and a half after ScaleOps secured $58 million in its Series B round in November 2024. Since then, the team has observed robust demand for autonomous cloud infrastructure solutions, Shafrir indicated, adding that the company is still in its nascent growth phase. A spokesperson confirmed the company’s total funding now stands at approximately $210 million.
ScaleOps reported over 450% year-over-year growth and has tripled its employee count in the last 12 months, with plans to more than triple it again by year-end.
With the newly acquired capital, ScaleOps intends to launch new products and expand its platform. As AI intensifies the demand for compute resources, managing this infrastructure becomes increasingly vital. The startup affirmed its commitment to advancing towards fully autonomous infrastructure.