Netris raises $15M Series A from a16z to speed neocloud launches

Netris has raised $15 million in a Series A round from Andreessen Horowitz to accelerate deployments for GPU-focused neocloud operators and expand its network-automation product. The funding comes as a16z partner Guido Appenzeller joins Netris’ board, and the company plans to hire more engineers and sales staff while adding support for more hardware vendors.

What did Netris announce?

Netris announced a $15 million Series A from Andreessen Horowitz and said a16z partner Guido Appenzeller will join the board, with the capital earmarked for engineering, sales hires, broader hardware support, and additional algorithmic functionality. The company framed the raise as a way to speed time-to-market for neoclouds that run AI inference and training workloads on GPU clusters.

Netris said the platform is already live at more than 35 GPU clusters around the world, representing about a million GPUs in total, and counts customers such as Lightning AI, Foxconn, Visionbay, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, TensorWave, and Telus. Nvidia recommended Netris to several customers after seeing a demo two years ago, the company said.

How does Netris' platform work?

Netris runs software on network switches and offers a platform that connects to those switches to automate setup, configuration, and operations, while providing network abstraction and hardware-layer isolation for multi-tenancy. The system is vendor-agnostic, compatible with the networking equipment and standards used at data centers, and supports servers from both Nvidia and AMD, the company said.

The core pitch is operational automation: the platform changes hardware configurations as required and isolates servers and resources at the hardware layer so neocloud operators can serve multiple customers without manual, per-link configuration. Netris’ CEO Alex Saroyan emphasized the need for hardware-accelerated control for AI traffic, arguing that "SDN is falling short, because it’s a software technology," and that AI traffic requires persistence and repeatability rather than creative, non-deterministic approaches.

Why does this matter?

Neocloud operators face a costly ramp: GPUs that sit idle while networks and multi-tenancy are configured add substantial expense, and small operators rarely have the engineering teams of major cloud providers. Netris addresses a practical bottleneck by turning repetitive switch and network setup into an automated, hardware-aware process, potentially shortening the weeks or months it can take to bring an AI-focused data center online.

The funding and board addition from a16z signal investor confidence and provide concrete runway for expanding vendor compatibility and sales reach. That could lower the barrier to entry for smaller GPU-cluster operators and change how specialized AI clouds scale their networking operations.

What to watch

Track deployment growth and vendor support: Netris is live at more than 35 GPU clusters and about a million GPUs now; the next milestones to watch are whether deployments expand beyond that footprint and how quickly Netris adds the broader hardware vendor support it said it plans. Also watch product updates tied to the company’s announced algorithmic enhancements and the effect on customers whose stacks include Nvidia and AMD servers.