A young startup that emerged from stealth less than two months ago with big-name backers and bigger ambitions is returning to the spotlight.
Decart is building what its CEO and co-founder Dean Leitersdorf (pictured above, right) describes as “a fully vertically integrated AI research lab,” alongside enterprise and consumer products based on the lab’s work.
Its first enterprise product optimizes GPU use, and is already bringing in millions of dollars in revenue. And its first consumer product, a playable “open world” AI model called Oasis, was released when Decart came out of stealth, and already claims “millions” of players.
Now, on the back of that strong launch out of the gates, Decart — based in San Francisco but with operations in Israel — has raised another $32 million in a Series A round led by Benchmark.
The funding comes less than two months after the company had raised a seed round of $21 million from Sequoia and Zeev Ventures, with the two firms also participating in this latest Series A.
TechCrunch understands from sources that Decart’s new post-money valuation is now over $500 million. For a point of comparison, the seed round valued it at just over $100 million.
Leitersdorf is a youthful 26, full of energy and coming in fast. He says the aim is not just to take on big players in the AI field like OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and the rest; instead he wants to build “a kilocorn” — a trillion-dollar company.
“We have a long way to go, and we have great stuff to build,” he added. That said, he noted that yes, the company has already been approached by buyers multiple times, and there are some interesting comparables if you look at the optimization piece it has built, such as Run:ai getting acquired by Nvidia for $700 million.
Leitersdorf’s exuberance comes after a decade of impressive momentum that got him to where he is now.
Born in Israel, Leitersdorf spent his early years there before moving with his family to Switzerland and then Palo Alto, following his parents’ work (they are doctors and researchers).
As a teen at Palo Alto High School, he pushed himself to get his diploma in just two years, only to then jump into university back in Israel at the Technion. There, he finished his undergraduate, masters and PhD work in computer science in just five years, overlapping with his military service.
His co-founder, Moshe Shalev (pictured above, left), is impressive in a different way: He came to computer science during his time in the IDF, and turned out to have a knack for it. He helped establish, build and run AI operations for the IDF’s 8200 intelligence unit, where he worked for nearly 14 years.
There is a third co-founder with an equally impressive background, but his name is not yet being disclosed due to existing commitments.
Decart before the horse
Decart, as it exists today, is focusing on three primary areas: systems (currently, infrastructure optimization), models (AI algorithms) and data (applications that ingest and return data).
Decart’s first product, launched while in stealth earlier this year, is in the systems camp: Software to help optimize how GPU processes work when training and running inference workloads on AI models.
Turns out, that software works very well. It is being used by a number of companies to reduce some of the operational costs that come with building or using artificial intelligence models. Leitersdorf said using Decart’s software, workloads that might typically cost $100/hour can be brought down to a mere 25 cents/hour.
“That definitely got people’s attention,” he joked.
Indeed, AI is very hot right now, but it seems that companies building tech to improve how well AI works are even hotter.
Decart is not naming any of its customers, but it claims its revenue is already in the millions, and there are enough customers that the company was profitable when it launched at the start of November. It’s on track to remain profitable through the end of the year, Leitersdorf added, and that interest from the market is another likely reason why VCs are interested.
“Decart’s innovation makes AI generation not only more efficient, but also more accessible for any type of user,” Victor Lazarte, a general partner at Benchmark who led the deal, said in a statement. “By removing barriers to entry and significantly reducing costs, they are empowering a new wave of creativity and practical applications. We’re proud to join them on this journey as they redefine the possibilities of AI and its role in our everyday lives.”
That optimization product may so far be the engine driving the startup’s bottom line, but it is not Decart’s primary focus. Leitersdorf said Decart built it to help finance the business while in stealth, based in part on research he had done when still a student.
Leitersdorf said Decart’s second product is in tune with what it hopes to do in the future.
The Minecraft-like Oasis is a “playable” AI that generates real-time, responsive audio and visual interactions. The plan is to launch more experiences along these lines, said Leitersdorf. These will include an upgraded Oasis game and others powered by generative AI. These could include AR or VR experiences that would not need specific hardware to run.
“The problem [with VR and AR previously] was that we started with the hardware rails,” he said. “But building hardware is hard, getting people to adopt new hardware is hard. The nice thing about gen AI is that we can actually [build AR] in the software part. We can actually bring value before the hardware is even ready.”
You could argue that Decart may have, ironically, put the cart before the horse when it comes to some of its ambitions. Leitersdorf didn’t give me much of an answer on the company’s position on customers that wanted to use its optimization software to build or run nefarious models.
Nor does the company have a plan to ensure the applications it develops do not get misused or abused. Right now, he said, those are not scenarios that have presented themselves.
The focus appears to be getting more people interested in its work across the platform, and turning that activity into revenue.
“The real king makers are the users,” Leitersdorf said. “They are the only ones that matter.”