Just over a year after emerging from stealth with $5 million in Series A funding, artificial intelligence and machine learning startup Carbon Relay has brought in a $63 million equity investment from Insight Partners.
Carbon Relay will use the new funding to build out its product “Red Sky Ops,” which uses machine learning and data science to optimize applications running in Kubernetes, an open-source platform that automates Linux container operations.
“It’s both really exciting and humbling,” co-founder and CEO Matt Provo said of Insight Partners’ investment. “I tell the team that most companies don’t get nearly this far, so we should be very proud. It also brings a new sense of expanded and further responsibility. As the founder and CEO of the company, my job is to continue building and increasing shareholder value. I think we’ve done over the last number of years, but we will continue now with this new capital. Insight [Partners] is an exciting and fantastic partner to really focus on go-to-market growth and scale.”
In addition to product development, the money will also go toward hiring: first in several key leadership roles, and then expanding Carbon Relay’s data science, engineering, sales and marketing teams. Provo expects to double headcount by the end of 2020. Carbon Relay currently employs about 20 people.
Founded in 2015, Carbon Relay is based in Boston and Washington, D.C. Earlier investors include Taiwanese multinational electronics contract manufacturing company Foxconn Technology Group, along with Boston-based angels James I. Cash, Douglas Levin, Karim Lakhani and Paul Deninger.
Provo said that at the moment, his focus is to grow and scale Carbon Relay, although he expects “potential exit opportunities will present themselves along the way.” And he thinks Boston’s tech ecosystem will help with both of those goals.
“We’re a machine learning company at our core,” Provo said. “Alongside biotech, Boston’s really becoming more and more known for pretty significant machine learning and AI technology companies. When I think about not only hiring but growing and scaling and potential M&A activity for us, I think Boston is a pretty fantastic place.”
