Africa-Press – Gambia. Cerebrium, an AI infrastructure startup founded in South Africa, has secured $8.5 million in seed funding. The round was led by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-centric VC firm—with additional backing from Y Combinator and Authentic Ventures, underscoring significant investor confidence in the company’s direction.
Launched in 2021 by Michael Louis and Jonathan Irwin in Cape Town, Cerebrium provides a serverless platform designed to simplify the development, deployment, and scaling of multimodal AI apps spanning text, image, and audio without requiring users to handle backend infrastructure. The platform powers tools like voice-based AI, live digital avatars, and AI-driven healthcare solutions.
Instead of relying on conventional systems that demand GPU provisioning and container orchestration, Cerebrium’s serverless architecture streamlines AI workload scaling automatically, reducing latency and easing the burden on developers. The startup’s client roster already includes enterprise players like Tavus and Deepgram, both contributing significantly to its multi-million-dollar annual recurring revenue (ARR).
The newly raised capital will be directed toward scaling Cerebrium’s engineering and product teams, enriching platform capabilities, and driving market entry efforts especially in the U.S., where the startup is now based. Additionally, the funds will help deepen enterprise partnerships and boost customer acquisition momentum.
This achievement signals a pivotal point for Cerebrium, underscoring growing investor trust in African-founded technologies tackling global AI infrastructure challenges. With support from Gradient Ventures and Y Combinator, the company is establishing itself as a formidable player in the developer infrastructure landscape.
With global AI investments surpassing $84 billion in 2024, Cerebrium stands out by offering a serverless AI infrastructure that prioritizes seamless deployment and scalable performance. Its frictionless model positions it strongly amid rising competition from well-funded startups like StackAI and Artisan, both building advanced agentic AI systems.
Over the next few months, Cerebrium aims to fast-track its growth by expanding its offerings in live streaming, real-time avatar features, and robust enterprise APIs. Its rapid progress also highlights the rising capacity of South African tech startups to deliver AI infrastructure solutions on a global scale.
Cerebrium’s success highlights the growing global recognition of African AI startups that are building enterprise-grade, developer-focused infrastructure solutions.
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