AI infrastructure cost control startup PointFive gets $60M to help enterprises save
FinOps startup PointFive Inc. said today it has raised $60 million from investors who are betting on its ability to help companies keep a lid on the spiralling costs of running artificial intelligence infrastructure. Accel led the round and it was joined by venture capital firms including Index Ventures, Entre Capital, Perpetual Growth, Vesey Ventures, Sheva Ventures and Salesforce Ventures.
New York-based PointFive has created what it calls an “AI and cloud efficiency platform” that allows businesses to visualize, control and optimize the costs associated with cloud-based computing infrastructure. The round brings its total amount raised to date to $96 million and its validation to $500 million, exactly half way to unicorn status.
The name “PointFive” reflects the company’s claim that it can help its customers to slash their cloud spending bills by half. It does this by scanning the cloud environments they use to uncover any wasteful spending on things such as idle servers, unused storage resources and so on. It’s particularly focused on AI infrastructure, where many organizations waste a lot of money on memory resources, it says. Many businesses will try to make sure they have ample context available for their AI models to ensure they can respond accurately. But if an AI model has too much context, it can cause problems such as slower response times and ballooning costs.