Nvidia backs Indian startup helping companies run AI models with fewer GPUs

As the AI boom strains computing capacity, Nvidia has backed Indian startup Simplismart in a $14 million funding round, betting on software that helps companies run AI models more efficiently and, in some cases, with fewer GPUs. Nvidia participated in the all-primary Series B round alongside Accel, Shastra VC, and Micromax, with Dallas Venture Capital leading the investment. The deal values the four-year-old startup at about $100 million, including the new funding. Companies are nowadays spending heavily on GPUs to power AI applications, but running those models reliably and economically at scale remains a challenge. Different workloads demand distinct trade-offs between speed, cost, and performance. Deploying and operating AI models to meet business requirements often also requires complex adjustments. Simplismart says its software automates much of that work, tailoring how models run on existing computing infrastructure instead of requiring customers to manage those configurations themselves. “Nobody actually needs the fastest or the cheapest inference,” Amritanshu Jain (pictured above, left), co-founder and CEO of Simplismart, said in an interview. He added that companies instead need to run AI models at speeds and costs that make sense for their specific applications. Simplismart’s software sits between AI models and the computing infrastructure they run on and adjusts how models are deployed and managed to meet customers’ requirements. It says it can optimize factors such as how quickly a model responds, how many requests it handles, and how much computing power it consumes, helping companies get more out of their existing GPU stack. The Bengaluru-based startup offers companies a way to deploy and run AI models through its own platform or within their existing cloud and on-premises infrastructure. It also provides tools to fine-tune models, automatically scale computing resources as demand changes, and monitor performance. Additionally, Simplismart allows cloud providers build and operate their own AI inference services on GPU infrastructure using its software. Simplismart says it helped AI video-generation platform InVideo cut its GPU serving costs by 56% using its software. The startup also works with AI video companies HeyGen and Higgsfield, as well as enterprise AI startup Ema, among others. Moreover, Indian cloud provider Yotta uses Simplismart’s technology to power the serverless AI inference service within its Shakti Studio …