The AI boom has seen a surge in small-scale cloud services for training and inference. However, setting up these neoclouds can take months of painstaking configuration work.

Enter Netris, which offers software that automates the setup process on network switches. This means neocloud operators can get their services live faster, without needing a huge engineering team to manage complex hardware configurations.

The startup’s platform also supports multi-tenancy and is compatible with various networking equipment and standards, making it vendor-agnostic. It has already partnered with several major players in the tech industry, including Lightning AI and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Netris recently raised $15 million from a16z to expand its operations further. With this funding, the company aims to hire more staff and add support for additional hardware vendors.