The rapid expansion and resource demands of artificial intelligence infrastructure have created significant operational headaches and cost increase for many companies. Cast AI, a startup focusing on automating and optimizing AI workloads using Kubernetes and other technologies, announced today that it has secured $108 million in a Series C funding round. The company plans to use the funds for further research and product development, as well as expansion into key markets such as the United States and other regions internationally.
According to sources familiar with the matter, this latest investment round brings Cast AI’s valuation close to unicorn territory, positioning the startup at around a $900 million post-money valuation. In comparison, when Cast AI raised its last round of $35 million in November 2023, its valuation stood around $300 million.
Yuri Frayman, Cast AI’s CEO and co-founder, describes the company’s mission succinctly: “It’s all about GPU, compute, and electricity. Our play is to ensure that we create efficiency, to be able to promote more workloads across GPUs. That is what we are about.”
Officially based in Miami, Florida, Cast AI significantly leverages a strong European presence—primarily across Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria—for software development and technical operations. The company currently serves approximately 2,100 customers, including globally recognized names such as BMW, Swisscom, Akamai, FICO, HuggingFace, and NielsenIQ. These organizations utilize Cast AI’s platform to analyze and optimize cloud and on-premise resources to achieve ideal cost-performance balances. The technology interfaces seamlessly with all major cloud providers.
Highlighting the industry’s urgent need for more efficient resource management, especially amid a global shortage of processors essential for training and deploying AI applications, the company points to its own research indicating that on average only 10% of CPUs and 23% of memory capacities are effectively utilized. A similar inefficiency gap also applies when using GPUs.
The Series C round was co-led by G2 Venture Partners and SoftBank Vision Fund 2, alongside participation from Aglaé Ventures—the investment entity headed by LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault—as well as prior investors Hedosophia, Cota Capital, Vintage Investment Partners, Creandum, and Uncorrelated Ventures.
Frayman noted that the oversubscribed round integrates Cast AI into the same investment circle as OpenAI and the AI infrastructure company Crusoe Energy, both involved in Stargate, a substantial AI infrastructure initiative led by Oracle, SoftBank, and others. Cast AI is actively collaborating with Crusoe and SoftBank to optimize efficiency across advanced AI datacenters. Frayman further indicated Cast AI’s participation in large-scale projects between OpenAI and SoftBank intended to deliver advanced AI services in Japan.
Although AI optimization is currently driving significant demand and attention, Cast AI initially began as a Kubernetes cost optimization solution inspired by challenges faced during the growth phase of an earlier cybersecurity venture, Zenedge. Following Zenedge’s sale to Oracle, the Cast AI founders—Frayman, Leon Kuperman, and Laurent Gil—leveraged lessons learned about managing escalating cloud expenses to create the initial Cast AI platform.
Frayman, originally from Ukraine and backed by a financial and technology background, along with Gil, earlier had co-founded Viewdle in 2006—a machine learning startup instrumental in pioneering GPU usage for image classification and recognition tasks. The firm later was acquired by Google. Their experience with Viewdle and Zenedge shaped the foundational insights behind Cast AI.
Although Kubernetes workload optimization continues to be a primary revenue driver and core competency for Cast AI, it is artificial intelligence’s rapid growth and resource consumption needs that have propelled the company strongly forward in terms of customer demand, partnerships, and market relevance.
“Cast AI is setting a new standard for cloud efficiency at a time when infrastructure demands are surging,” explained Tim Yap, Investment Director at SoftBank Investment Advisers, underscoring the strategic importance of the startup’s technology in today’s rapidly evolving AI ecosystem.
Carl Fritjofsson, a general partner at Creandum, remarked on Cast AI’s foresight and innovation: “Right now in the world, everyone is talking about AI agents. Cast was an AI agent long before we started calling this technology by that name. They have been building this type of automation for a long time.”
