Nvidia, the chip giant, today announced its acquisition of the Israeli artificial intelligence company Run:ai, as revealed by Calcalist. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, though it is estimated to be around $700 million. In a blog post, Nvidia's Vice President for DGX Cloud, Alexis Bjorlin, stated: "To help customers make more efficient use of their artificial intelligence computing infrastructures, Nvidia announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Run:ai, a provider of software for managing workloads and orchestration based on Kubernetes."
Run:ai was established in 2018 by Omri Geller (CEO), who previously served in a technological unit at the Prime Minister's office, and Dr. Ronen Dar (CTO), a former researcher at Tel Aviv University and an algorithms engineer at Anobit and Apple. Since its inception, the company has raised $118 million. Its latest funding round in 2022 raised $75 million in a Series C round, led by Tiger Global and Insight Partners, with additional investment from TLV Partners and S Capital VC.
The company has developed an operating system for the latest artificial intelligence processors, utilizing advanced virtualization technologies. Run:ai's Atlas platform aggregates all of an organization's computing resources and dynamically and automatically allocates resources to all concurrent tasks, tailored to the needs and preferences of the organization. Run:ai serves a diverse clientele, including Fortune 500 companies and startups across various sectors such as finance, automotive, healthcare, and top academic institutions. The investment funds will be used to expand the development center in Tel Aviv and to hire developers, engineers, AI specialists, product managers, and marketing staff.
"Implementing artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly complex, with workloads distributed between cloud computing, edge AI, and independent data center infrastructures," Bjorlin explained. "Managing workloads in areas like generative AI, recommendation systems, search engines, and other demands requires sophisticated timing to optimize and enhance performance at both the system and infrastructure levels."
Nvidia currently has a global workforce of around 30,000 employees, with roughly 3,200 based in Israel, primarily in Yoqne'am and Tel Aviv. Israel represents Nvidia's second most critical strategic hub globally. The company's most significant acquisition to date was that of Mellanox in 2019, purchased for approximately $6.9 billion. This acquisition now contributes $13 billion annually to Nvidia and significantly enhances its technological capabilities.
Omri Geller, CEO and co-founder of Run:ai, remarked, "Run:ai has been closely collaborating with Nvidia since 2020, and we share a common vision to support our customers so they can best utilize their infrastructure. We are excited to join Nvidia and look forward to continuing our journey together."
Ayala Peterburg, a founding partner at S Capital VC, which invested in Run:ai, said, "Omri and Ronen built a company that, with its acquisition by Nvidia, becomes one of the pillars of the future of the artificial intelligence world. Having accompanied the founders and the company for almost their entire journey, we are proud and delighted at their success. The acquisition of Run:ai is a vote of confidence in the Israeli high-tech industry during these complex times, demonstrating its strength and resilience even during the challenging period the country is experiencing."
Rona Segev, a founding partner at TLV Partners which led the seed investment and has been involved in all subsequent funding rounds, stated: "From the moment I first met Omri and Ronen, it was evident that they were the right investment. We met back in 2018, before AI really took off. Omri and Ronen recognized a gap in the training and development of artificial intelligence models and introduced a vision for pioneering technology.
"It's been six incredible years, and we are thrilled to be a part of their path and are eager to see what the future holds for them. The acquisition today underscores their steadfast commitment to their objectives and bold vision, the cutting-edge technology, and the diligent efforts of the entire Run:ai team. Currently, it also represents a significant milestone for the broader Israeli ecosystem."