ScaleOps raises $130M to improve computing efficiency amid AI demand | TechCrunch

AI may be on the rise, but behind the scenes, companies are wasting a lot of money on expensive computers. GPUs are always idle, workloads are over-delivered, and cloud costs are rising. ScaleOps believes the problem isn’t scarcity — it’s bad management.

The startup, which builds software that manages and redistributes computing resources in real time, has raised $130 million in an $800 million valuation, ScaleOps said Monday. The Series C funding round was led by Insight Partners, with participation from existing investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, NFX, Glilot Capital Partners, and Picture Capital. The company says its software cuts cloud and AI costs by 80%.

ScaleOps was founded in 2022 by Yodar Shafrir, a former engineer at Run:ai, a GPU music group acquired by Nvidia, after seeing firsthand how difficult it was for companies to manage the increasing workloads of AI. While tools like Kubernetes help run applications on large clusters of machines, they often rely on static configurations that struggle to keep up with rapidly changing demand, leading to underutilized GPUs, performance issues, and inefficiencies.

“As part of my role [at Run:ai]I met with many customers, especially DevOps teams, “Shafrir, who is the CEO of the company, told TechCrunch.” Although they really liked what Run:ai had to offer, they were still struggling to manage their productivity, especially as self-employment became more common in the AI ​​age. When I zoomed in, I realized that the problem wasn’t just the GPUs. It is extended to compute, memory, storage, and networking. The same patterns kept repeating themselves; teams were failing to manage resources effectively. ”

DevOps teams often found themselves chasing multiple stakeholders to solve problems, and often, those efforts failed. Most of the existing tools gave visibility to the problems, but stopped short of providing real solutions. That gap revealed a significant market opportunity.

ScaleOps aligns application requirements with process decisions in real time and provides an automated solution that manages back-end processes, Shafrir said.

“Kubernetes is a great system. It’s flexible and highly configurable. But it’s also a problem,” Shafrir said. “Kubernetes relies heavily on static configurations. Applications today are very dynamic, requiring constant manual work from all teams. You need something that understands the context of each application—what it needs, how it behaves, and how the environment changes.”

There are several players in this area, including Cast AI, Kubecost and Spot. Although many companies have developed independent equipment, they often work without full standards, which can lead to operational issues and even reduce time, reducing confidence among the teams that manage production areas, according to the CEO.

The startup says its platform is built specifically for production from the ground up. It’s fully autonomous, context-aware, and works out of the box without requiring manual configuration — capabilities the company believes set ScaleOps apart from competitors.

The New York-headquartered company serves enterprise customers around the world, primarily those running Kubernetes infrastructure, with a footprint that spans large organizations as well as companies across Europe and India. ScaleOps says its platform is used by a wide range of enterprise customers, including Adobe, Wiz, DocuSign, Salesforce and Coupa.

The Series C funding comes about a year and a half after ScaleOps raised $58 million in its Series B round in November 2024. Since then, the group has seen a strong demand for independent solutions to manage cloud resources, Shafrir said, adding that it is still in the early stages of its growth. The company’s total revenue is about $210 million, according to the lawyer.

ScaleOps said it has seen more than 450% year-over-year growth and that it has tripled in size in the past 12 months, with plans to triple it again by the end of the year.

With the new capital, ScaleOps plans to launch new products and expand its platform. As AI drives the need for computing, managing infrastructure becomes even more important. The startup said it will continue to build independent private buildings.