Nvidia Backs Simplismart in $14M Round Valuing Startup at $100M

Nvidia has invested in Indian startup Simplismart as part of a $14 million Series B round that values the four-year-old company at about $100 million, including the new funding. The bet is notable: the world's dominant AI chip supplier is backing software that helps companies run AI workloads more efficiently and, in some cases, with fewer GPUs.

Dallas Venture Capital led the all-primary round. Nvidia, Accel, Shastra VC and Micromax also participated.

What does Simplismart's software actually do?

Simplismart builds inference software that sits between AI models and the computing infrastructure they run on. The software adjusts how models deploy and operate to match each customer's requirements. It tunes factors such as response speed, request throughput and compute consumption.

The pitch targets a real pain point. Companies spend heavily on GPUs to power AI applications, but running those models reliably and economically at scale remains difficult. Different workloads demand distinct trade-offs between speed, cost and performance. Deployment often requires complex configuration work that customers would rather not manage themselves. Simplismart says its software automates much of that work on existing infrastructure.

"Nobody actually needs the fastest or the cheapest inference," co-founder and CEO Amritanshu Jain said in an interview. Companies instead need to run AI models at speeds and costs that make sense for their specific applications, he said.

The Bengaluru-based company offers deployment through its own platform or within customers' existing cloud and on-premises setups. Its tools also let companies fine-tune models, scale computing resources automatically as demand shifts, and monitor performance. Cloud providers can build and operate their own AI inference services on GPU infrastructure using Simplismart's software.

Who uses it, and what results do they see?

The customer list includes AI video companies InVideo, HeyGen and Higgsfield, plus enterprise AI startup Ema. Simplismart says it helped InVideo cut its GPU serving costs by 56%. Indian cloud provider Yotta uses Simplismart's technology to power the serverless AI inference service within its Shakti Studio platform.

The growth numbers are steep. Simplismart's annualized revenue run rate has grown 14-fold over the past six months to an eight-figure sum, Jain told TechCrunch. The figure reflects recent customer usage rather than contracted recurring revenue, and excludes revenue passed through to infrastructure providers. Jain did not disclose the exact number.

More than half of the startup's revenue comes from the U.S., even though it counts more customers in India, Jain said.

Why would Nvidia fund software that cuts GPU demand?

The investment carries an apparent paradox. Nvidia sells the GPUs that companies buy in bulk, yet it is now funding software that can reduce how many chips some workloads require. Jain argued the opposite effect dominates: making AI inference more efficient makes Nvidia's hardware more attractive to customers and encourages wider adoption of AI applications.

The relationship goes beyond capital. Nvidia has worked with Simplismart on technical integrations, including around its Dynamo inference software, Jain said. The collaboration involves Simplismart's engineers and Nvidia's solutions architects. Nvidia has also introduced the startup to potential customers and partners.

How crowded is this market?

Simplismart competes in an increasingly busy field for AI inference software. Rivals include Nvidia itself, major cloud providers and hyperscalers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, plus a growing wave of startups building tools to make AI models faster and cheaper to run.

Jain pointed to where the company differentiates. "Where we tend to win is where people have to be more stringent on their SLAs [service-level agreements] and TCO [total cost of ownership]," he said. Unlike rivals offering preset options for faster or cheaper inference, Simplismart aims to find a balance tailored to each customer's needs.

Who built the company, and what comes next?

Jain, a former Oracle engineer, and Devansh Ghatak, a former Google engineer, founded Simplismart in 2022. The two met while studying at BITS Pilani. The startup grew out of their experience building and deploying machine-learning systems. It now employs 58 people, Jain said.

The new funding will fund a U.S. expansion, team growth and further development of the inference software. Jain told TechCrunch the U.S. remains a key market as the startup builds on its existing customer base there.

The round follows a report by Indian English daily The Economic Times that Simplismart was in talks to raise $40 million to $50 million at a valuation of $300 million to $400 million. Jain declined to comment on the report. He said the startup was not actively fundraising, that the Series B was closed, and that it would not be extended. If those larger talks were real, the closed $14 million round at a $100 million valuation suggests Simplismart chose certainty over a bigger check.