Netris raises $15M Series A from a16z to automate networks for AI neoclouds launching GPU clusters

Netris raises $15M Series A from a16z to help AI neoclouds go live faster

The AI boom has encouraged everyone and their uncle to launch a data center business. But spinning up a data center isn't easy. Even if you solve the problem of securing the GPUs, network switches, and storage, you still have to get everything configured, running and be able to cater to customers' various needs. Getting getting a data center ready to provide cloud-computing services AI inference and training services can take months of work. And the longer you take to get to market, the higher the cost of having all those precious GPUs sitting idle. Network automation startup Netris claims it can make that problem disappear for neoclouds. The company provides software that runs on network switches, and it also offers a platform that connects to switches to help neocloud operators reduce the time it takes to go live by automating setup, configuration and operations. The platform also provides network abstraction, so hardware configurations can be changed as required, and it isolates servers and resources at the hardware layer so neoclouds can serve multiple customers (multi-tenancy). If that sounds like a solution to an obvious problem, you're not wrong. Until recently, data centers were largely the domain of large infrastructure operators like Equinix, NTT, Digital Realty, Oracle, Microsoft, AWS, or Google. Those companies pretty much solved network setup, configuration and multi-tenancy for themselves by hiring ranks of engineers or building the automation themselves. Small neocloud businesses rarely have such resources at their disposal. "As a GPU cluster operator, you need to make configuration changes to every link, every day. At traditional data centers, they were using something called SDN [software-defined networking] to do this, but SDN is falling short, because it's a software technology," Netris' CEO Alex Saroyan told TechCrunch. "For AI, software is not okay, because the amount of traffic is so high, everything must be hardware accelerated. So you need something like SDN, but completely hardware accelerated. This is what we do, and this is what what we've been doing for eight years." Saroyan said Netris' platform is vendor-agnostic, compatible with networking equipment and standards used at data centers, both for Nvidia and AMD's servers. The startup's promise has found many believers, one of which is Nvidia. Two years ago, the chipmaking giant was so impressed by a demo of Netris' technology that it recommended the company to several customers. Today, Netris is live at more than 35 GPU clusters around the world (about a million GPUs total), operated by the likes of Lightning AI, Foxconn, Visionbay, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Tensorwave, Telus, and others. To build on that momentum, Netris has now raised $15 million in a Series A round from Andreessen Horowitz, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. Notably, there's no AI at work here. Saryoan said the company only uses algorithms it had developed previously for running and configuring automation and operations. "We started way before AI. We understood the challenge early on, and we started developing this algorithm early on. AI is not deterministic, right? Sometimes it likes to do things on its own. It's good for creative work, but for changing many thousands of switch configurations, you don't need to be creative. You need to be very persistent and repeatable." a16z partner Guido Appenzeller is joining the company's board. Looking forward, Netris aims to use the funding to hire more engineers and sales staff, add support for more hardware vendors, and implement more functionality in its algorithm.

Netris raises $15M Series A from a16z to automate the networking that slows down GPU clouds

Netris raised $15M from a16z for its GPU network automation platform, now live at 35-plus clusters with 800 percent annual revenue growth. Netris, a Santa Clara startup that automates the networking layer inside GPU data centres, has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The round follows what the company says is 800 percent annual recurring revenue growth and more than 35 live deployments at GPU clusters around the world, including operations run by Lightning AI, Foxconn-backed Visionbay, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, TensorWave, and Telus. The problem Netris addresses is not the one that gets the most attention in the AI infrastructure boom. Neoclouds have raised billions of dollars to buy GPUs and build data centres, but getting those facilities operational requires configuring the network fabric that connects thousands of servers, a process that can take months and leave expensive hardware sitting idle. A single GPU server carries at least three north-south connections, 16 east-west connections, and four NVL72 links, according to the company. Every time a tenant is added, resized, or removed, the network must be reconfigured across every layer simultaneously, sometimes across hundreds or thousands of switches at once. One misconfiguration can take a cluster down or leak one customer's data to another. Netris sells software that runs on network switches and a platform that automates setup, configuration, and operations for neocloud operators. The platform also provides network abstraction, so hardware configurations can be changed as required, and it isolates servers and resources at the hardware layer to support multi-tenancy. The company calls the approach NAAM, for Network Automation, Abstraction, and Multi-Tenancy. CEO Alex Saroyan told TechCrunch that traditional software-defined networking falls short for AI workloads because the volume of traffic requires everything to be hardware-accelerated. "For AI, software is not okay, because the amount of traffic is so high, everything must be hardware accelerated," he said, adding that Netris has been building hardware-accelerated network automation for eight years. Nvidia, which has committed more than $40 billion to AI infrastructure investments this year, was an early validator. Two years ago the chipmaker was impressed enough by a demo that it began recommending Netris to its own customers. Saroyan said the platform is vendor-agnostic, compatible with networking equipment from both Nvidia and AMD. The startup claims its platform is now live at more than 35 GPU clusters totalling roughly one million GPUs. The neocloud sector has seen a wave of funding in recent months, with companies like Runpod reaching billion-dollar valuations on the strength of the AI compute shortage. Netris occupies a different layer of the stack, selling the infrastructure software those GPU cloud operators need rather than competing with them for compute customers. Guido Appenzeller, a partner at a16z who previously co-founded Big Switch Networks and served as CTO at VMware's Cloud and Networking division, led the round and is joining the Netris board. "GPU clusters run across many fabrics at once, and legacy automation was never built for that," Appenzeller said, calling Netris the platform that AI cloud operators are standardizing on. One notable detail is that Netris does not use AI in its own product, relying instead on deterministic algorithms it developed before the AI boom. Saroyan argued that creativity is the wrong trait for a system responsible for changing thousands of switch configurations. "AI is not deterministic," he said, adding that network configuration requires persistence and repeatability, not creativity. Netris was founded in 2018 and operates teams across the United States, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, Australia, Armenia, and India, with Singapore opening this year. The company plans to use the funding to hire engineers and sales staff, add support for more hardware vendors, and expand the functionality of its automation platform.