Nvidia has taken a stake in Bengaluru-based artificial intelligence startup Simplismart as part of a $14 million Series B funding round, placing a bet on software designed to help businesses run AI models more efficiently - and in certain cases, with a reduced reliance on graphics processing units. The round was led by Dallas Venture Capital, with participation from Accel, Shastra VC, and Micromax. The investment values the four-year-old company at approximately $100 million, inclusive of the newly raised capital.

The funding arrives at a time when businesses are spending enormous sums on GPU infrastructure to support AI workloads, yet many continue to struggle with the challenge of deploying those models reliably and cost-effectively at scale. Different applications require different trade-offs between response speed, computational cost, and overall performance, and managing those variables typically demands significant technical expertise. Simplismart positions its software as a solution to that complexity, automating the configuration and optimization of AI model deployments so that customers do not have to handle those adjustments manually.

"Nobody actually needs the fastest or the cheapest inference," said Amritanshu Jain, co-founder and chief executive of Simplismart, in an interview. He explained that what businesses actually require is the ability to run AI models at speeds and price points that align with the specific demands of their applications - a balance that is rarely achieved through one-size-fits-all infrastructure settings.

Software That Sits Between Models and Infrastructure

Simplismart's platform operates as an intermediary layer between AI models and the underlying computing infrastructure on which they run. The software dynamically adjusts how models are deployed and managed, targeting factors such as response latency, request throughput, and overall compute consumption. By tuning these variables, the company says it enables organizations to extract greater value from their existing GPU resources without requiring additional hardware investment.

The startup gives customers the flexibility to deploy and operate AI models either through its own hosted platform or directly within their existing cloud and on-premises environments. Its toolset includes capabilities for fine-tuning models, automatically scaling compute resources in response to fluctuating demand, and monitoring model performance in real time. Simplismart also offers its software to cloud providers that want to build and operate their own AI inference services on top of GPU infrastructure.

Customer Wins and Revenue Growth

Among its notable deployments, Simplismart says it helped AI video generation platform InVideo reduce its GPU serving costs by 56 percent. The startup also counts AI video companies HeyGen and Higgsfield among its clients, along with enterprise AI company Ema. In addition, Indian cloud provider Yotta has integrated Simplismart's technology into the serverless AI inference service within its Shakti Studio platform.

On the financial side, Jain reported that the company's annualized revenue run rate has grown fourteenfold over the past six months, reaching an eight-figure sum. He noted that this figure is derived from recent customer usage patterns rather than contracted recurring revenue, and that it excludes revenue passed through to infrastructure providers. The precise figure was not disclosed. Notably, more than half of Simplismart's revenue originates from the United States, even though the startup serves a larger number of customers in India.

Nvidia's Involvement Goes Beyond Capital

Beyond its financial participation in the round, Nvidia has been collaborating with Simplismart on technical integrations, including work related to Nvidia's Dynamo inference software. Jain described the collaboration as involving engineers from both companies, with Nvidia's solutions architects working alongside Simplismart's technical team. Nvidia has also reportedly helped connect the startup with potential customers and partners.

The investment does raise an apparent contradiction: Nvidia, the world's dominant supplier of AI chips, is funding a company whose software can help clients run certain workloads using fewer of those same chips. Jain addressed this directly, arguing that making AI inference more efficient does not undermine Nvidia's business but rather strengthens it. By lowering the cost and complexity of running AI applications, he contended, Simplismart's software makes Nvidia hardware more appealing to a broader range of customers and encourages wider adoption of AI-powered products overall.

A Competitive but Growing Market

Simplismart operates in a market that is becoming increasingly competitive. Its rivals include Nvidia itself, which offers its own inference tools, as well as major cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. A growing number of well-funded startups are also developing products aimed at making AI models faster and less expensive to operate, driven by rising enterprise demand for AI applications and the broader need to make better use of costly GPU resources.

Jain acknowledged the crowded landscape but argued that Simplismart differentiates itself by focusing on customers with stringent performance and cost requirements. "Where we tend to win is where people have to be more stringent on their SLAs and TCO," he said, referring to service-level agreements and total cost of ownership. Rather than offering preset configurations optimized for either speed or cost, Simplismart targets a customized middle ground tailored to each individual customer's operational needs.

Founders and Company Background

Simplismart was founded in 2022 by Jain, a former engineer at Oracle, and Devansh Ghatak, a former engineer at Google. The two met while studying at BITS Pilani, one of India's premier engineering institutions, and built the company on the back of their combined experience designing and deploying machine-learning systems in large-scale production environments. The company currently employs 58 people.

With the new capital in hand, Simplismart intends to deepen its footprint in the United States, expand its workforce, and continue developing its inference software platform. Jain described the U.S. as a strategically important market for the company as it looks to build on the customer relationships it has already established there.

Fundraising Reports and Company Response

The announcement of the Series B comes after Indian financial newspaper The Economic Times published a report indicating that Simplismart had been in discussions to raise between $40 million and $50 million at a valuation in the range of $300 million to $400 million. When asked about those reports, Jain declined to comment on the specifics, stating that the company was not actively seeking additional funding. He also confirmed that the Series B round had been formally closed and would not be reopened or extended.