Netris Raises $15M from a16z to Accelerate AI Neocloud Deployments

Netris, a network automation startup that helps AI neocloud operators go live faster, has raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The company announced the funding on June 25, 2026, exclusively to TechCrunch.

Netris claims its platform can reduce the time it takes to bring a GPU cluster online from months to days by automating network setup, configuration, and operations. The company is already live at more than 35 GPU clusters worldwide, supporting roughly one million GPUs total.

Hardware-Accelerated Networking for AI Workloads

Traditional software-defined networking (SDN) falls short for AI workloads because the traffic volume is too high for software-based approaches, according to Netris CEO Alex Saroyan. The company's platform runs directly on network switches and provides hardware-accelerated network abstraction, allowing operators to change configurations without manual re-cabling. It also isolates servers and resources at the hardware layer to support multi-tenancy.

Key facts about Netris and its platform:

• Vendor-agnostic, compatible with networking equipment from Nvidia and AMD server environments.
• Uses deterministic algorithms, not AI, for configuration changes. Saroyan said AI is not suitable for repetitive switch configuration tasks.
• Customers include Lightning AI, Foxconn, Visionbay, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, TensorWave, and Telus.
• Nvidia was so impressed by a demo two years ago that it recommended Netris to several customers.
• a16z partner Guido Appenzeller is joining the company's board.

Neoclouds Face Unique Scaling Challenges

The AI boom has spurred a wave of new data center operators, but small neocloud businesses lack the engineering resources of hyperscalers like AWS, Google, and Microsoft. Those large operators built their own network automation in-house. Netris aims to fill that gap with a platform that handles setup, configuration, and ongoing operations for GPU clusters.

Looking ahead, Netris plans to use the Series A funding to hire more engineers and sales staff, add support for additional hardware vendors, and implement more functionality in its algorithm. The company has been developing its technology for eight years, predating the current AI boom. Saroyan emphasized that the platform relies on deterministic algorithms rather than AI, because network configuration requires persistence and repeatability, not creativity.