DataCrunch, an European provider of AI computing infrastructure, has raised a €12 million seed funding round led by byFounders. The funding will be used to scale infrastructure as the company sets out to become Europe’s first hyperscaler – enhancing service delivery for AI companies by providing increased computing capacity.
Other participants in the round include J12 Ventures, and several prominent angels, including Oskari Saarenmaa (founder of Aiven), Tuomo Riekki (founder of Smartly), former AI researchers and founders from the likes of DeepMind and Elo Health, and continuous support from the Finnish insurance company Local Tapiola and Nordic bank Nordea.
Founded in 2020 by CEO Ruben Bryon, DataCrunch’s seed round brings its total capital raised to $18 million. DataCrunch has increased its annual revenue by 250%, and its services have already been employed by a number of AI startups and scaleups, including developers at OpenAI, Sony, 1x.tech, Freepik, Nex.art, Manifest.ai, Premai.io.
“DataCrunch was born out of frustration with the existing hyperscaler offerings. AI companies deserve better access to computing without the complexity and high costs that have become the industry norm,” said Ruben Bryon, Founder and CEO of DataCrunch. “With this new round of funding, we are scaling our infrastructure to meet the growing demand, and firmly positioning ourselves as Europe’s leading provider of AI infrastructure.”
The company is also set to launch its use of Nvidia H200 servers and clusters, and will adopt GB200 NVL72 clusters next year, further expanding the speed, capacity, and capabilities of the infrastructure it provides. With this latest round of investment, DataCrunch plans to scale its team further and expand its services to meet growing demand across Europe and beyond.
Despite global growth, AI innovation faces significant challenges; namely, the cost and limited availability of accelerators such as GPUs. With AI models becoming increasingly resource-intensive, the need for optimized, high-performance computing has never been more pronounced. As consumer demands continue to rise, securing affordable infrastructure has become a critical bottleneck to AI innovation.
DataCrunch addresses this challenge by offering on-demand, cost-effective access to compute clusters designed specifically for AI workloads. As an AI-focused cloud provider, DataCrunch can enable businesses to scale computing resources up or down – including storage, processing power, and networking – providing infrastructure that can adjust to fluctuating demand whilst efficiently managing large computational needs.
Leveraging its data centers in Finland and Iceland – regions known for their use of renewable energy – DataCrunch can serve AI workloads at a fraction of the cost of traditional cloud providers, matching customers with the specialized hardware and software that enables them to scale successfully. The platform also offers self-service tools, empowering customers to autonomously deploy their proprietary models with ease.
“We are proud to lead this investment round for DataCrunch,” added Magnus Hambleton at byFounders. “Ruben and his team have built an incredibly efficient model that not only solves a pressing issue for AI companies, but also solidifies DataCrunch’s position as a key player in AI infrastructure. As the industry races to find solutions that are convenient, cost-effective, and scalable, we are pleased to support DataCrunch on its path to becoming the first European hyperscaler.”
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2024/10/helsinki-based-datacrunch-io-raises-e12-million-to-hyperscale-ai-computing-in-europe/
