July at Gradient

Monthly insights from the front lines of AI

July 31, 2025

Recent funding announcements

Cerebrium Raises $8.5 million (Business Insider)

Behind every surreal voice and video AI experience are engineers managing complex computational resources at massive scale. Michael Louis and Jono Irwin built Cerebrium to solve the infrastructure headaches they experienced firsthand while scaling AI at OneCart (acquired by Walmart's Massmart). Like most developers, they were stitching together countless tools for experimentation, deployment, and debugging. Even after success, costs were high and maintaining sprawling infrastructure was problematic. Today, Cerebrium powers companies like Tavus, Deepgram, and Vapi, orchestrating hundreds of millions of computation seconds monthly.

More Portfolio News

Cursor Acquires Clarity

Cursor just announced that the Clarity team has joined their AI-powered code editor platform, bringing their expertise in AI-driven development tools into Cursor's growing ecosystem. The acquisition includes Clarity founders Rohan and Austin, who will help accelerate Cursor's mission to transform how software is built with AI assistance. The combined expertise promises to accelerate Cursor's development as developers increasingly rely on AI to enhance their coding workflows and build software faster than ever before.

How Restaurants Are Using AI Tools Like Hostie

Anyone who's worked in the service industry knows it's a brutal marathon. The manual labor, the constant demands, the sheer exhaustion adds up quickly, making high staff turnover less of a surprise and more of an expectation. It's a tough environment where employees often feel stretched thin and unappreciated.

Restaurants are now turning to AI tools like Hostie to fundamentally change how their teams operate. This means taking the mundane tasks off their plates, freeing up staff to focus on what truly matters: delivering exceptional service and building genuine connections with guests. Hostie effortlessly manages restaurant calls, texts, and emails, can schedule reservations and even place orders or answer guests’ dietary questions.

Opportunities Across the Portfolio

Sona – Regional Sales Director (View and apply)

Krea – Machine Learning Engineer (View and apply)

Prepared – Engineering Manager (View and apply)

Airspace Intelligence – Frontend - React Native Engineer (View and apply)

P.S. - If you're building something new in AI, we'd love to hear from you.