Last Updated: 4 December 2024
Cake, a managed open-source AI infrastructure platform, announced it has raised $13 million to make cutting-edge AI accessible to mid-sized businesses. This recent seed round was led by Gradient, Google’s early-stage AI fund, alongside previous investors Primary Venture Partners. Other participants include Alumni Ventures, Friends & Family Capital, Correlation Ventures, Firestreak Ventures, and several individual industry veterans.
Cake accelerates AI adoption by offering a platform for seamless deployment, integration, and management of numerous popular open-source AI technologies. Their platform transforms recent AI innovations into production-ready infrastructure, significantly lowering the barrier to entry for companies that lack engineering resources.
“Companies in every sector are investing in the latest technologies with an eye toward winning in their markets with AI. Unfortunately, the cutting-edge has historically been the exclusive domain of large ML engineering teams. At Cake, we’re working to ensure that businesses of any size can confidently deploy the latest technologies, within days, or even hours, and without requiring an army of engineers. Customers across financial services, healthcare, insurtech, e-commerce, and traditional SaaS already rely on Cake’s fully-managed AI infrastructure platform in production for core business use cases.”
Misha Herscu, CEO and co-founder of Cake
The new funds will be used primarily for product development and to expand market reach.
Cake plans to invest in enhancing its platform capabilities, adding more pre-integrated AI technologies, and further refining the user experience.
In addition, Cake aims to grow its team by hiring talent across engineering, customer support, and business development. The company is focused on scaling operations to meet growing demand from customers in multiple industries, including financial services, healthcare, and e-commerce.
Cake is a comprehensive AI infrastructure platform that helps businesses solve problems quickly using open-source AI. Launched in 2023 and based in New York City, Cake offers a curated selection of fully-managed AI components for fast deployment.
It’s currently the only end-to-end managed open-source AI infrastructure stack that allows customers to replace existing workflows with advanced AI models.
Cake was founded by Misha Herscu and Skyler Evans, who bring extensive experience in machine learning and infrastructure development. Their vision is to make cutting-edge AI accessible to businesses of all sizes. The company’s board includes prominent leaders from the tech and AI sectors, further strengthening its strategic direction.
What makes Cake different is its modular, flexible platform architecture that integrates the latest AI breakthroughs while offering a user-friendly approach. By reducing the technical complexities and risks of deploying AI, Cake is helping businesses innovate faster and more confidently.
Gradient, Google’s early-stage AI fund, has been a leader in AI investments, supporting companies such as Lambda Labs, Writer, and Streamlit.
“As early investors in AI companies such as Lambda Labs, Writer, Streamlit, and many others, we’ve seen businesses of all sizes struggle to deploy models and AI tools into production. When we first met the team at Cake, it was incredible to see the number of customers deeply engaged with their solution. Misha and Skyler have not only built a product customers want, they’re also extremely dedicated to listening, collaborating, and learning from non-technical companies looking to deploy AI into production.”
Darian Shirazi, Managing Partner at Gradient
Primary Venture Partners, Alumni Ventures, Friends & Family Capital, Correlation Ventures, and Firestreak Ventures also participated in this round, showcasing broad support for Cake’s mission. Links to each investor can be found at the bottom of this article.
Source: Business Wire
