Pioneering Kubernetes Cost Optimization: CAST AI Raises $35 Million Series B to Save You Even More Money and Time

Running apps in the cloud has never been costlier, especially with the rush to train AI models demanding GPUs and complex computations. From day one, CAST AI has focused on reducing expenses by automating cloud infrastructure optimization – and our recent series B round validates this approach. 

Today, I’m excited to share that we’ve closed a $35M series B round from Vintage Investment Partners and existing investors Creandum and Uncorrelated Ventures. This brings our total funding raised to $73 million and comes on the heels of CAST AI being named one of 2023 Gartner® Cool Vendors™ in Cloud That Drive Business Disruption.

Our mission is to deliver a fully automated Kubernetes experience. It’s about creating an integrated platform where every component – from cost reporting to instance management – works in unison. With new feature releases, we’re getting one step closer to making that happen.

We’re using the new round of funding to accelerate our pace of innovation and save customers even more on their AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud bills. There’s never been a more pressing time to solve the cloud cost challenge than now, so it’s time to act.     

Why Kubernetes cost optimization matters more than ever

Running workloads in the cloud comes with a hefty price tag, which will only get more expensive with the rush to train AI models demanding GPUs and complex computations. 

AI promises to unlock new exciting opportunities, and it’s already become a standard market demand. According to WSJ, CTOs face growing pressure to build more AI apps, while 70% of companies Gartner surveyed earlier this year had already dived into this area. 

Enterprises training and running their LLMs risk bills as high as $700,000 a day, as is the case for OpenAI’s infrastructure cost on Azure. 

Mounting expenses and specialized compute requirements make the margin for AI products lower than for typical SaaS, further complicating their development. Add to that prevalent GPU shortages, and the struggle to train and run LLMs is real, driving costs even higher.

Automating manual Kubernetes cost optimization tasks 

In the past, spot instances promised to reduce cloud expenses by up to 90%. But recent research proves that the era of cheap compute is over. You need to pick the right spot for your workload and know when to swap it out, as prices grow cyclically. 

Provisioning spot instances takes knowledge and time, just like many other tasks when you manage Kubernetes costs manually. It’s difficult to find engineers capable of handling these jobs, so it makes perfect sense to take tedious and repetitive tasks off their plates. Instead of handling endless patches, they can focus on applications that drive business growth. 

AI and automation are the answer to this challenge – and CAST AI proves it can be done efficiently and without sacrificing application stability.  That’s why our userbase has skyrocketed since 2022, and we’ve recently onboarded marquee brands like Akamai and Yotpo. 

Pioneering the future of Kubernetes cost optimization

Born out of frustration with soaring cloud costs, CAST AI targets the obstacles standing in the way of unleashing cloud native’s potential. 

Built for Kubernetes, it continuously analyzes the user’s workload’s needs and automatically optimizes cloud resources, delivering average savings of 50% and more. Such significant results are often available within minutes as the platform finds new efficiencies on the spot.

The team behind CAST AI has been relentlessly slashing cloud bills and continuing to help users automate tasks better suited to ML-powered systems. Companies like NielsenIQ, OpenX, Branch.io, and ShareChat have used the platform to automate Kubernetes management and save millions of dollars.  

Let’s make the cloud affordable again

The new round of funding will further expand the capabilities of our Kubernetes cost optimization platform. Our goal is simple: save users even more money and time. 

Thanks to automation, cloud computing can be affordable again – so let’s make it happen! For us, our users, and the entire cloud native ecosystem. 

Join the quest to make the cloud affordable again – book a technical demo and see what automation can do for your Kubernetes cost.