SkyPilot, an AI infrastructure automation startup co-founded by Databricks co-founder Ion Stoica, launched from stealth with $20M in seed funding led by Lux Capital. The company commercializes an open-source project of the same name developed at UC Berkeley.
Enterprises typically run AI workloads across multiple cloud environments with different chips, management tools, and configurations. SkyPilot’s platform lets developers manage all these environments through a single interface, automating tasks like workload placement, infrastructure provisioning, and failure recovery.
The paid SkyPilot Platform includes tools for creating inference sandboxes – secure virtual machines where AI agents can run code without creating security risks. The software can launch a new sandbox in under a second by pre-loading virtual machines. It also provisions GPU clusters with 5,000 chips in under a minute.
Investors include Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi and Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean as angel backers. The company plans to use the funding to enhance both its open-source and paid offerings and grow its team.
