CAST AI says its new software is being used by telcos, payment platforms and fintech companies to enable them to use multi-cloud environments more efficiently and cost-effectively.
The Miami-based startup has just closed its $7.7 million seed funding round. This first tranche of money has been raised by DNX Ventures, Florida Funders, as well as Ukrainian venture capital firm TA Ventures, and other angel investors. The startup was founded in October 2019 by employees from Oracle, Zenedge and various other companies.
Laurent Gil, co-founder and chief product officer at CAST AI, says that the startup’s multi-cloud platform allows users to mix and match public cloud service providers, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle.
“The company was born out of the realization that we wanted to give freedom back to the developer to deploy applications in a multi-cloud environment,” said Gil. Previous experience in a company that was “completely locked-in on AWS,” leading to a billing situation that was “out-of-control” motivated the startup to develop software that streamlines costs and maintains a robust multi-cloud environment.
The CAST AI platform can help set up multi-cloud Kubernetes with just a few clicks and can enable users to connect to several cloud accounts at once. The software can determine the best combination of price, compute power, and even location. “CAST is giving the developer the tool so they can let [the platform] decide on behalf of the developer what these machines should be, and where they should be located,” Gil said.
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The software can also help protect firms against costly cloud outages, such as the prolonged AWS outage that occurred on November 25, 2020. The platform can automatically switch to other cloud service providers if an outage — or other technical difficulties — occur. According to Gil, “if there is a cloud failure, it doesn’t become a disaster.”
The CAST AI system can help companies quickly optimize clusters, scaling up or down, depending on need, in minutes. “You want to fit and only use what you strictly need, but no less, and no more,” Gil said.
The startup already has customers that are using its platform. Gil can’t name these customers yet, but says that the types of businesses that are using CAST typically require a lot of compute power and include cyber-security firms, fintech companies, payment platforms and North American telcos.
