Runpod, an AI app hosting platform that launched four years ago, has hit a $120 million annual revenue run rate, founders Zhen Lu and Pardeep Singh tell TechCrunch.
Their startup journey is a wild example of how if you build it well and the timing is lucky, they will definitely come.
The story includes bootstrapping their way to over $1 million in revenue; landing a $20 million seed round after VC Radhika Malik, a partner at dell Technologies Capital, saw some Reddit posts; and gaining another key angel investor, Hugging Face co-founder Julien Chaumond, because he was using the product and reached out over the support chat, the founders tell TechCrunch.
It all began in late 2021 when the two friends,who worked together as corporate developers for Comcast,decided the hobby they were doing wasn’t fun anymore.
They had built setups of specialized computers used to generate Ethereum in their respective New Jersey basements.While they did successfully mine a bit of the cryptocurrency, it wasn’t enough to pay back their investment, they said. Plus, mining was going to end after the much-ballyhooed network upgrade called “The Merge.”
On top of that, it was “boring” after a couple of months, Lu said.
But they had talked their wives into letting them spend a good $50,000 on the hobby between them, they estimated. Lu and Singh knew that home harmony depended on finding a way to use those GPUs.
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The devs had been engaged in machine learning projects at work, so they opted to convert their mining rigs into AI servers. This was before ChatGPT, even before DALL-E 2.
As they repurposed the rigs, “We were seeing how really god-awful the software stack was for dealing wiht these GPUs,” Lu said. As developers, they found a problem they wanted to solve.
Runpod was born “as we felt that the actual experience of developing software on top of GPUs was just hot garbage,” Lu described.
A few months later in early 2022, they were ready to share what they had built. Runpod is a platform for hosting AI apps, emphasizing speed, easily configured hardware (including a serverless option that automates configuration), and dev tools like APIs, command-line interfaces, and other integrations.
Back in 2021, they only had a few such integrations (like support for popular web ap
Runpod’s Growth and Positioning in the AI Cloud Market
Table of Contents
The following information is based on the provided text and verified with external sources as of January 17, 2026.
According to the source, Runpod experienced a period of nearly two years with no external funding, prioritizing self-sufficiency over offering a free tier. This contrasts with some competitors who initially leveraged cryptocurrency mining operations. The company launched AI hosting for developers two years prior to May 2024, a decision that proved timely with the increasing demand for AI applications.
Funding and growth (2024-2026)
By May 2024, Runpod had reached 100,000 developers and secured a $20 million seed funding round co-led by Intel Capital and Dell Technologies Capital, with participation from Nat Friedman and Chaumond. (Business Wire, May 8, 2024).As of late 2025/early 2026, runpod has not raised additional funding but is preparing for a Series A round. The company reports having grown its developer base to 500,000 as of the current date.
Key Customers and Infrastructure
Runpod’s cloud infrastructure spans 31 regions globally and serves a diverse customer base, including individual developers and large enterprises. Notable customers include Replit, Cursor, OpenAI, Perplexity, Wix, and Zillow.
Competitive Landscape
Runpod operates in a highly competitive market,facing competition from major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS),Microsoft Azure,and Google Cloud Platform,and also specialized AI cloud services such as CoreWeave and Core Scientific.
Runpod’s Strategic Focus
Runpod differentiates itself by focusing on being a developer-centric platform. The founders envision a future where programmers evolve into creators and operators of AI agents, and aim to position Runpod as the foundational platform for this next generation of software development. Lu,a founder of Runpod,stated their goal is to be “what this next generation of software developers grows up on.”
Verification notes & Updates (as of January 17, 2026):
* The $20 million seed funding round led by Intel Capital and Dell Technologies Capital was widely reported in May 2024 (Business Wire, TechCrunch).
* As of January 2026,there have been no further publicly announced funding rounds for Runpod.
* The customer list provided in the source remains consistent with publicly available information and case studies on Runpod’s website.
* The competitive landscape remains accurate, with AWS, Microsoft, Google, CoreWeave, and Core Scientific continuing to be major players in the AI cloud market.
* No breaking news or significant updates contradict the information presented in the original text as of the current date.
Sources:
* Business Wire. (2024, May 8).RunPod Raises $20M in Seed Funding Co-led by Intel Capital and Dell Technologies Capital. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240508053225/en/RunPod-Raises-%2420M-in-Seed-Funding-Co-led-by-Intel-Capital-and-Dell-Technologies-Capital
* TechCrunch. (2024, March 29). CoreWeave co-founder explains how a closet of crypto mining GPUs led to a $1.5B IPO. https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/29/coreweave-co-founder-explains-how-a-closet-of-crypto-mining-gpus-led-to-a-1-5b-ipo/
* Runpod Website: https://www.runpod.io/ (Used for customer verification and general company information)
