Netris raises $15M Series A from a16z for AI data
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- Netris raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) to scale its network automation platform aimed at AI-focused data center operators.
- Netris runs software on network switches and connects to them via a platform that automates setup, configuration, and operations, claiming it cuts the months-long time neoclouds need to go live.
- CEO Alex Saroyan argued the platform must be hardware-accelerated rather than software-defined networking (SDN) because AI traffic volumes are too high for traditional SDN to handle.
- Netris is live at more than 35 GPU clusters worldwide — roughly one million GPUs total — with customers including Lightning AI, Foxconn, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, TensorWave, and Telus.
- Nvidia was so impressed by a Netris demo two years ago that it recommended the startup to several customers.
- a16z partner Guido Appenzeller is joining Netris's board; the company will use the funding to hire engineers and sales staff and add support for more hardware vendors.
- Saroyan said Netris deliberately avoids using AI in its platform, noting that "AI is not deterministic" and switch configuration requires "very persistent and repeatable" algorithms rather than creative ones.
Why it matters: With traditional cloud giants like Microsoft, AWS, and Google solving network setup through massive engineering teams, Netris sells a vendor-agnostic, hardware-accelerated shortcut that lets small neoclouds — already running roughly one million GPUs across 35+ clusters — go to market faster and monetize idle hardware. Nvidia's early recommendation to customers gives the startup distribution leverage at exactly the moment the neocloud segment is taking off.
