What are the top cloud infrastructure startups?

This blog post has been written by the person who has mapped the cloud infrastructure startup market in a clean and beautiful presentation

The cloud infrastructure startup landscape has experienced unprecedented growth, with $3.55 billion raised across major rounds in 2024-2025.

Leading companies like CoreWeave and Wiz have secured billion-dollar valuations by focusing on AI-optimized GPU clouds and agentless security platforms. These startups are distinguished by their specialized approaches to GPU acceleration, sovereign cloud deployment, and AI-driven automation rather than competing directly with hyperscalers on general compute.

And if you need to understand this market in 30 minutes with the latest information, you can download our quick market pitch.

What are the most promising cloud infrastructure startups right now, and what exactly do they offer?

The most promising startups focus on AI-optimized infrastructure, security automation, and specialized cloud deployment models rather than general-purpose computing.

CoreWeave leads with Kubernetes-native GPU clouds delivering 35x faster AI/ML processing and 80% cost reduction compared to legacy providers. Their infrastructure specifically targets large language model training and inference workloads that traditional clouds struggle to optimize efficiently.

Wiz dominates cloud security with agentless scanning that unifies posture management, code analysis, container security, and network monitoring in a single platform. Their approach eliminates the need for multiple point solutions and reduces security tool sprawl that enterprises face.

Cyera specializes in AI-powered data classification and security across hybrid environments, processing petabyte-scale datasets with automated risk assessment. TensorWave provides AMD GPU-based HPC clouds as an alternative to NVIDIA-dominated infrastructure, offering serverless inference capabilities.

Chainguard focuses on hardened container images and supply-chain security artifacts, addressing the growing concern over software supply chain attacks. Cast AI automates Kubernetes cost optimization using machine learning to right-size workloads and eliminate waste.

Which of these startups raised the most funding in 2024 and 2025, and what was the total industry funding?

CoreWeave led 2024 funding with a $1.1 billion Series C round, while Cyera dominated 2025 with a $540 million Series E.

The total aggregate funding across major cloud infrastructure startup rounds reached approximately $3.55 billion. CoreWeave's $1.1 billion round was the largest single raise, followed by Wiz's $1.0 billion Series E and Cyera's $540 million round in early 2025.

Other significant funding rounds included Together AI's $305 million Series B, Chainguard's $356 million Series D, Cast AI's $108 million Series C, and TensorWave's $100 million Series A. Smaller but notable rounds included Render's $80 million, Cerby's $40 million, and Extend's $17 million.

The funding concentration reflects investor appetite for AI infrastructure and security platforms, with GPU-focused and cybersecurity startups commanding premium valuations. The average round size for leading startups exceeded $300 million, indicating mature market validation and enterprise adoption.

Need a clear, elegant overview of a market? Browse our structured slide decks for a quick, visual deep dive.

If you want fresh and clear data on this market, you can download our latest market pitch deck here

Who are the main investors backing these companies, and how much did each invest?

Top-tier venture capital firms and strategic corporate investors dominate the funding landscape, with Coatue, Andreessen Horowitz, and SoftBank leading major rounds.

Are any of these startups supported or funded by major tech giants like AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure?

Strategic investments come primarily through venture arms rather than direct cloud provider funding, with Salesforce Ventures being the most active strategic investor.

Google Cloud supports several startups through its Google Cloud for Startups program, providing credits and technical resources to companies like Cerby and Together AI. However, this represents partnership rather than equity investment.

Salesforce Ventures has made strategic investments in Wiz, Cerby, Chainguard, and Together AI, totaling hundreds of millions in committed capital. These investments align with Salesforce's multi-cloud strategy and platform ecosystem expansion.

AWS Activate and Azure for Startups provide credits and technical support to multi-cloud platforms like Pulumi and Prosimo, but specific equity investments remain undisclosed. The hyperscalers prefer partnership models that avoid direct competition concerns while enabling ecosystem growth.

AMD Ventures directly funded TensorWave's $100 million Series A to develop alternatives to NVIDIA's GPU dominance. This represents one of the few direct hardware vendor investments in the space.

Which startups received notable awards, recognition, or made it into top tech lists in 2024 or 2025?

CRN's annual lists dominate industry recognition, with multiple startups appearing across both 2024 and 2025 rankings.

CRN's 2024 Coolest Cloud Computing Startups featured Cast AI, CoreWeave, Prosimo, Pulumi, Spectro Cloud, Tackle.io, Ori, Wiz, Operant AI, and Upbound. This list focuses on companies with innovative technical approaches and strong enterprise traction.

The 2025 CRN Hottest Cloud Computing Startups mid-year list included Render, Extend, Sotira, Cerby, SkillCycle, TensorWave, Together AI, Cyera, Prosimo, and Chainguard. The shift toward AI-focused and security companies reflects market evolution.

Forbes Cloud 100 2024 provided industry context with established players like Wiz, Snowflake, Databricks, and Stripe, positioning emerging startups as future challengers to these market leaders.

The recognition patterns show preference for companies with measurable enterprise adoption, technical differentiation, and clear path to profitability rather than pure innovation without market validation.

Which startups are attracting the most enterprise customers or have notable strategic partnerships?

Enterprise adoption concentrates among startups with clear ROI metrics and integration capabilities with existing enterprise infrastructure.

Wiz leads enterprise penetration with BMW, Fox, Morgan Stanley, and Salesforce as customers, achieving $500 million ARR with 40% of Fortune 100 companies as clients. Their agentless deployment model reduces implementation friction that traditionally slows enterprise security adoption.

Cast AI serves over 2,100 organizations with partnerships including Hugging Face for cost-efficient LLM deployment. Their ML-driven optimization delivers immediate cost savings that CFOs can measure quarterly.

Prosimo targets Fortune 100 companies with autonomous multi-cloud networking, featuring integration with Palo Alto Networks for distributed firewalling. Their approach addresses the complexity of managing multiple cloud environments that large enterprises face.

Upbound has 2,700+ subscribers using Crossplane control planes in technology enterprises, focusing on platform engineering teams building internal developer platforms. Their success reflects the shift toward infrastructure as code and GitOps workflows.

Wondering who's shaping this fast-moving industry? Our slides map out the top players and challengers in seconds.

If you need to-the-point data on this market, you can download our latest market pitch deck here

What geographies are seeing the most growth in cloud infrastructure startups, and where are the leading players based?

North America dominates with headquarters concentration in California, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Florida, and Nevada.

The United States hosts the majority of leading startups: CoreWeave (Roseland, NJ), Wiz (New York, NY), Cyera (New York, NY), Cast AI (Miami, FL), Together AI (San Francisco, CA), TensorWave (Las Vegas, NV), Chainguard (Kirkland, WA), Cerby (Alameda, CA), Prosimo (San Jose, CA), and Pulumi (Seattle, WA).

Europe shows emerging activity with Ori based in London and PoliCloud in Cannes, France, which raised €7.5 million for sovereign cloud infrastructure. The European focus on data sovereignty and regulatory compliance creates distinct market opportunities.

Asia Pacific and MENA regions represent expansion targets for established players like CoreWeave and PoliCloud rather than centers of startup origination. The geographic concentration reflects access to venture capital, technical talent, and enterprise customers primarily located in North American technology hubs.

The sovereign cloud trend may drive geographic diversification as data localization requirements increase, particularly in Europe and Asia.

Which companies have made significant breakthroughs in cloud infrastructure R&D recently, and what should be expected in 2026?

GPU-scale computing and edge deployment represent the primary areas of technical breakthrough, with companies achieving unprecedented scale and efficiency.

CoreWeave operates 1,024 H100 GPU clusters that enable massive parallel AI training workloads previously impossible on traditional cloud infrastructure. TensorWave deploys AMD MI325X clusters as alternatives to NVIDIA-dominated GPU computing, providing cost and supply chain diversification.

PoliCloud develops modular HPC containers for sovereign edge deployment, enabling data sovereignty compliance while maintaining cloud-scale efficiency. Chainguard advances guarded programming languages for secure edge workloads that eliminate entire classes of security vulnerabilities.

Operant AI creates Runtime AI Protection systems that provide real-time guardrails for AI model deployment. Render builds language-agnostic deployment planes that simplify application deployment across multiple cloud environments.

Expected 2026 developments include ubiquitous Blackwell GPU deployments, proliferation of decentralized sovereign edge nodes, and AI-driven autonomous infrastructure management that reduces human operational overhead. The focus will shift from building infrastructure to optimizing and securing it autonomously.

What technical innovations or differentiators are helping these startups stand out in areas like security, scalability, or edge computing?

Startups differentiate through agentless architectures, Kubernetes automation, and specialized hardware optimization rather than competing on general-purpose features.

Security innovations center on agentless approaches that eliminate the operational overhead of managing security agents across cloud environments. Wiz's API-first scanning architecture provides comprehensive visibility without performance impact. Operant AI's runtime guardrails protect AI workloads during execution rather than requiring pre-deployment security scans.

Scalability advances focus on Kubernetes automation and GPU orchestration. Cast AI uses machine learning to automatically right-size workloads and eliminate resource waste. Ori and CoreWeave provide GPU orchestration platforms that handle the complexity of distributing AI workloads across thousands of accelerators.

Edge computing differentiation comes through sovereign deployment models and eco-responsible architecture. Spectro Cloud's Palette manages distributed Kubernetes deployments across edge locations. PoliCloud's modular containers enable rapid deployment of sovereign cloud infrastructure in regions with data localization requirements.

The common thread is automation and specialization rather than broad feature sets, allowing startups to deliver superior performance in specific use cases that hyperscalers struggle to optimize.

If you want actionable data about this market, you can download our latest market pitch deck here

Are there any upcoming IPOs or acquisition targets among the top startups that investors are watching?

Alphabet's $32 billion acquisition of Wiz in March 2025 demonstrates the premium valuations available for market-leading cloud infrastructure companies.

CoreWeave represents the most likely IPO candidate for 2026, with a $19 billion valuation and mature revenue metrics that support public market readiness. Their GPU infrastructure addresses the massive AI compute demand that shows no signs of slowing.

Prosimo, Cast AI, and Chainguard are positioned for IPO consideration within 18-24 months as hybrid-cloud adoption accelerates and enterprises increase infrastructure spending. Their enterprise customer bases and recurring revenue models align with public market preferences.

The acquisition landscape favors strategic buyers seeking to complete platform capabilities rather than financial buyers looking for growth. Salesforce's investments suggest potential future acquisitions to expand their cloud platform ecosystem.

Looking for the latest market trends? We break them down in sharp, digestible presentations you can skim or share.

Which trends or shifts in the cloud infrastructure market are shaping funding and innovation in 2025 and expected to continue in 2026?

Four major trends drive funding allocation and innovation priorities: AI accelerator demand, multi-cloud governance, sovereign cloud requirements, and security consolidation.

The AI accelerator arms race creates unprecedented demand for specialized GPU and AI-inference clouds, driving record funding rounds for companies like CoreWeave and TensorWave. Enterprises need alternatives to capacity-constrained hyperscaler AI services.

Multi-cloud and hybrid governance complexity drives investment in control-plane abstraction platforms with embedded AI capabilities. Companies like Pulumi and Upbound address the operational challenge of managing infrastructure across multiple cloud providers.

Edge and sovereign cloud deployment addresses data sovereignty requirements, latency reduction needs, and eco-responsible computing mandates. PoliCloud's modular approach exemplifies this trend toward distributed, compliant infrastructure.

Security consolidation toward Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) and unified posture management reduces tool sprawl. Wiz's comprehensive platform approach reflects enterprise preference for integrated security rather than point solutions.

These trends will intensify in 2026 as AI workloads scale, regulatory requirements increase, and enterprises demand more sophisticated automation and governance capabilities.

What are the major risks or challenges facing new entrants in the cloud infrastructure space today?

Capital intensity, hyperscaler competition, regulatory complexity, and talent scarcity create significant barriers for new cloud infrastructure entrants.

Hyperscaler competition intensifies as AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure bundle services aggressively and match startup innovations rapidly. New entrants must differentiate through specialized capabilities rather than competing on general-purpose features where hyperscalers have economies of scale.

Capital intensity for GPU and data center buildouts requires substantial funding with debt financing risks. CoreWeave's $7.5 billion debt facility illustrates the scale of capital required for physical infrastructure deployment.

Regulatory compliance challenges multiply as sovereign cloud mandates and data localization laws vary by jurisdiction. Startups must design for compliance from inception rather than retrofitting solutions.

Talent shortages in AI and cloud-native engineering drive hiring costs beyond startup budgets. Competition with hyperscalers and established tech companies for scarce technical talent creates operational constraints.

Successful new entrants focus on specialized markets, leverage partnerships for capital efficiency, design for compliance, and emphasize remote-first hiring to access global talent pools.

Conclusion

Sources

1. CRN - The 10 Hottest Cloud Computing Startups of 2025
2. CRN - The 10 Coolest Cloud Computing Startup Companies of 2024
3. EU-Startups - PoliCloud raises €7.5 million for sovereign cloud infrastructure
4. Seedtable - Best Cloud Infrastructure Startups
5. Google Cloud for Startups - Early Stage Program
6. CEO Insight - The Next Wave: 10 Startups to Watch in 2025
7. Exploding Topics - Cloud Computing Startups
8. Forbes - Cloud 100 List
9. Data Center Dynamics - CoreWeave closes $1.1bn Series C funding round
10. TechCrunch - Wiz raises $1B at $12B valuation
11. Wiz - Celebrating our $1 billion funding round
12. Reuters - Alphabet's $32 billion Wiz deal