Simplismart raises $14 million in Series B round to expand AI inference platform
Read more
Business Standard
business-standard.com

Simplismart raises $14 million in Series B round to expand AI inference platform

Simplismart, a company specializing in artificial intelligence inference infrastructure, announced that it has raised $14 million in a Series B funding round. The round was led by Dallas Venture Capital, with participation from NVIDIA, Accel, Shastra VC, and Micromax.

The funds raised will be used for the further development of the Simplismart inference platform. This will enable enterprises to launch AI-based applications more efficiently, and cloud providers to transform their Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) infrastructure into managed AI services. Furthermore, the funding will support the expansion of partnerships with cloud providers and sovereign AI, as well as growth in North American and other global markets.

Simplismart creates a software layer situated between AI models and GPU infrastructure. Its modular inference engine allows companies to customize AI model operation according to their needs for speed, cost, and performance. The company's orchestration platform manages deployment and scaling in both cloud and on-premise infrastructure.

Over the last six months, the company's annual revenue growth rate has increased 14fold. Companies such as HeyGen, Higgsfield, InVideo, Shiprocket, Apna, and Ema run production workloads on the Simplismart platform, covering video, voice, multimodal, and enterprise AI applications.

Amritaanshu Jain, Co-founder and CEO of Simplismart, noted that while the industry has spent many years improving AI model capabilities, the advantage is determined by how these models are utilized: the cost per interaction, application response speed, and reliability under increasing demand. He added that the team spent four years creating the software layer between the model and the GPU, helping clients optimize workload deployment and operation.

An example of usage is the Exotel communications platform. After Exotel found that the economics of closed API models were unsuitable for its voice agents, the company fine-tuned an open model on its own data and migrated the inference to Simplismart. By sharding GPUs, Simplismart reduced the cost per minute for Exotel by 57% compared to closed API models. Additionally, it lowered costs below that of self-hosting the same open model and reduced response time from 1.1 seconds to less than 300 milliseconds.

As part of its offering to cloud providers, Simplismart collaborates with NVIDIA to simplify the deployment and operation of AI infrastructure at scale. Unlike inference providers who buy or reserve GPU capacity and resell it, Simplismart itself does not own computing power. Instead, it provides a software layer that transforms third-party GPU clusters into ready-to-use AI production infrastructure. Cloud providers can use this platform to offer managed AI services under their own brands without building their own software stack from scratch. This approach is already used by Yotta, where the Simplismart platform forms the basis of the Shakti Studio server inference layer.

Dayakar Puskoor, Managing Partner at Dallas Venture Capital, stated that inference is becoming one of the most significant drivers of change in the AI economic model. He emphasized that Simplismart is rapidly becoming a global player, helping enterprises execute AI workloads more efficiently and enabling cloud providers to convert GPU power into scalable services.

Devansh Ghatak, Co-founder and CTO of Simplismart, reported that the company's modular inference engine allows configurations to be adapted to the requirements of individual workloads, and the orchestration platform manages deployment across various infrastructure environments. Ghatak also mentioned that the new funding will support the development of a dynamic GPU scheduling layer, which can align AI workloads with available computing power across different regions and time zones, helping cloud providers better utilize their GPU infrastructure.

Similar stories

North.cloud raises $60 million in Series B round to expand AI cost management
Read more
ventureburn.com

North.cloud raises $60 million in Series B round to expand AI cost management

North.cloud has successfully raised $60 million in a Series B funding round. These funds will be used to develop the company's financial operating system, which covers cloud services, artificial intelligence, and data handling.

Investors participating in this round include Peak Span Capital, Liquidity Ventures, Companyon Ventures, Alpaca, Uncommon Denominator, Gaingels, and Mana Ventures. The secured capital will allow for increased investment in product development, as well as ensuring a higher degree of automation and adding new integrations.

North enables enterprises to reduce infrastructure costs across all leading cloud service providers and modern data platforms, including Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS. The company aims to replace fragmented processes related to various pricing models, usage requirements, and reporting tools inherent in each system (whether it is cloud infrastructure, a data model, or a service).

Thanks to the North platform, clients have saved over $400 million against total managed cloud spending, which approaches two billion dollars. Among the company's clients are AssemblyAI, Atlan, Tines, SnapLogic, Emplifi, and Imply. The platform addresses a growing problem for finance and engineering departments.

Traditionally, teams often use spreadsheets and separate dashboards to understand infrastructure costs, which consumes significant time without automatically eliminating costly inefficiencies. North combines cost analytics with automated optimization, helping businesses identify waste, manage cloud commitments, and increase computing value. This approach provides finance and engineering teams with a unified view of infrastructure economics.

The latest funding followed the release of North v3, which expanded support to Microsoft Azure, thus completing support for three major hyperscalers. Furthermore, native integrations with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Snowflake were implemented, and the Autobot automatic commitment scaling mechanism was enhanced.

Artificial intelligence is creating new challenges in business financial management. The increasing use of models adds an extra layer of complexity to existing cloud service and data expenditures. North is expanding its platform to help companies manage these interconnected costs.

TokenFlow's offering integrates model usage, attribution, budgeting, and financial control into a single system. Businesses can use these features alongside existing cloud infrastructure management, reflecting the growing overlap between AI and traditional infrastructure costs.

North believes that effective cost management requires more than just dashboards for companies. Automated systems can help teams detect changes, improve resource allocation, and leverage optimization capabilities, which can reduce manual workload as AI adoption accelerates.

AssemblyAI reported an effective savings rate of about 50% through its work with North. The company noted that its coverage expanded in parallel with infrastructure growth, allowing the team to focus on customer-centric development.

North plans to reinvest the Series B funds into increasing the number of integrations and strengthening autonomous optimization. Funds will also be invested in additional AI cost management tools and new personnel hiring. These investments will help North realize its vision of fully automating the infrastructure cost lifecycle.

The company demonstrates a customer retention rate of 98.8% and reports over $400 million saved by its clients. North's current clientele includes several large technology companies, and the company believes its results can be leveraged to target other cost categories. As AI plays an increasingly vital role in software development, infrastructure costs are becoming less separate from the product and the business it supports. North is building a platform designed to help such enterprises manage these expenses without stifling innovation.

Albert raises $55 million to advance chemical AI in R&D
Read more
ventureburn.com

Albert raises $55 million to advance chemical AI in R&D

Albert has successfully raised $55 million in a Series B funding round, with the funds designated for advancing artificial intelligence in scientific research. The leadership of this round was secured by TCV, and new investors joined, including Delta-v Capital, Socium Ventures, High Sage Ventures, Coral Capital, and Legion VC.

Truffle Capital led the financing, with participation from existing investors such as Coatue, J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners, Index Ventures, and Applied Ventures. The company plans to use the raised capital to further refine its chemistry-based platform.

Located in Oakland, California, Albert develops an operating system for materials science and chemistry. This platform integrates specialized AI with corporate security, management, and integration features, such as no data storage, granular access control, and audit trails of reasoning.

Albert provides services to organizations with complex research challenges facing evolving regulations and disrupted supply chains. Among the company's clients are BASF, Henkel, Clorox, Kenvue, and Akzo Nobel. Albert's goal is to help these companies' scientists faster transform experimental data into innovative products.

Albert's model, named Valence, is chemically specific and demonstrates an accuracy 45 times higher than general AI when answering scientific questions. This accuracy metric was achieved in a new study accompanying the funding announcement. Valence was trained on text processing and composition and function identification.

The method mimics the ability of an experienced chemist to distinguish between similar compositions and materials, as well as understand how minor changes can significantly impact an experiment. In chemistry, for instance, the slightest deviations in ingredients, procedures, or experimental conditions can lead to different results. Albert handles this through domain-specific intelligence and its Form Bench benchmark for formal chemistry.

Albert asserts that this benchmark will set a new standard for evaluation in this highly specialized field. The Albert platform combines scientific knowledge, AI tools, integrations, and regulatory control into a single environment. It allows scientists to interact with research data using natural language. By querying Albert, users coordinate tools, agents, and models to support complex scientific work.

The system helps teams find institutional knowledge and avoid repeating past experiments. It is capable of suggesting formula candidates, assisting in experiment design, and analyzing large datasets. These capabilities aim to eliminate bottlenecks in research and improve decision-making processes.

Furthermore, Albert supports enterprise requirements regarding data security and controlled access. Its chemistry-specific approach enables organizations to link information across various research systems, facilitating the discovery and reuse of valuable experimental knowledge.

Over the past year, Albert has demonstrated significant platform growth. Project creation increased 26-fold as Albert OS was implemented in organizational research functions. The number of scientists using the platform grew sixfold across 44 countries. These achievements reflect growing interest in specialized AI for corporate research.

Workflow creation also increased fourfold as more teams adopted various research processes on the platform. Ask Albert transformed from an AI search assistant into a broader R&D partner in just six months. Client feedback highlights the value of connecting disparate scientific information. Kenvue noted that the partnership with Albert improved connections within the overall data platform, while AkzoNobel used Ask Albert to query information covering raw materials and lab journal entries. Albert intends to use the new funding to expand its capabilities and accelerate product development.

Popular