Modal, the AI infrastructure startup co-founded by Erik Bernhardsson (CEO) and Akshat Bubna (CTO), has raised $87 million in a Series B funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to $1.1 billion. The round was led by Lux Capital and included participation from existing investors Redpoint and Amplify Partners. Previous funding rounds brought Modal’s total capital raised to $111 million.
The Series B financing will support the continued development and scaling of Modal’s computing platform, which is designed to efficiently handle resource-intensive workloads. Bernhardsson described the platform as “a massive, elastic fleet of GPUs & CPUs, a container engine with sub-second boots, a custom globally distributed file-system, a code-first interface that developers love, and more.” He emphasized that the platform was built to meet the needs of AI-native companies and to accelerate the deployment of complex workloads.
Bernhardsson highlighted the rationale behind building the platform from the ground up, stating, “Why did we build an entire infra stack from scratch? It was the only way to 10x the velocity of shipping AI products to production scale.”
Infrastructure Designed for Complex Workloads
Modal’s platform enables developers to deploy computing resources globally with minimal manual configuration. Containers start in under a second, and resources are allocated automatically according to demand. This architecture enables teams to execute high-volume projects, such as reinforcement learning environments, media processing pipelines, and other data-intensive workloads, with fewer operational constraints.
The platform has expanded beyond the initial infrastructure to include products designed to support specific development workflows. Bernhardsson noted, “Since then, we’ve launched several products on top of this foundation that are growing incredibly fast, like Sandboxes and Notebooks.” These tools provide isolated environments for experimentation, batch processing for large datasets, and collaborative development spaces, helping teams execute complex workloads efficiently.
Modal’s platform is used by a range of organizations, including Meta, Lovable, Suno, Substack, and Scale AI. The company reports that these customers rely on the infrastructure daily to handle spikes in computational demand, manage parallel processing tasks, and accelerate the deployment of large-scale projects. By providing rapid access to computing resources and reducing operational complexity, Modal allows teams to focus on development rather than infrastructure management.
Expanding Capabilities and Vision
The Series B funding will also support the company’s growth in personnel and engineering capacity. Bernhardsson outlined the long-term vision, stating, “Our vision is to be the infrastructure provider that accelerates every single stage of the AI/ML lifecycle. For that, we want to add to our team of stellar engineers.” The company’s emphasis on operational efficiency, scalable deployment, and a flexible development interface aligns with its stated objective of supporting all stages of complex computing projects.
The infrastructure platform allows teams to manage workloads that vary in size and complexity, providing tools for rapid experimentation, model deployment, and collaborative development. Products such as Sandboxes and Notebooks illustrate the practical application of the platform, enabling isolated environments for testing and processing large volumes of data. By integrating these capabilities directly into the infrastructure, Modal aims to streamline workflows and reduce the friction that often accompanies high-volume computing.
