Technology

Runpod Raises $100M Led by Summit Partners to Accelerate the AI Developer Cloud

Published

4 months ago

June 24, 2026

NEWARK, N.J., June 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Runpod, the AI Developer Cloud, today announced a $100 million growth investment led by Summit Partners. The round comes on the heels of strong momentum for Runpod, which is now valued at $1.0 billion. The company has more than one million developers building on the platform. The new capital will fund continued investment in the full lifecycle AI development platform those developers depend on to take AI from first experiment to production.

Runpod is the AI developer cloud, offering AI developers a single destination to build. While much of the market has converged on hosted inference, developers use Runpod to experiment, train, fine-tune, run inference, and scale multi-node runs, all from one platform, with a library of models and templates ready from day one. With self-serve access, transparent per-second pricing and no commitment minimums, most developers are running their first workload within an hour of sign-up.

“The market spent the last two years narrowing to inference, but builders need more than that,” said Zhen Lu, CEO of Runpod. “They need one place to take an idea from first experiment to production traffic, without stitching together multiple tools or waiting on a procurement cycle. That is precisely the cloud we are building. This funding lets us build it faster, to serve the next million developers and more.”

The company’s growth underscores both the depth of developer demand and Runpod’s ability to meet the needs of that community. Runpod’s Serverless platform has processed more than 20 billion inference requests to date. Developers stay because the platform earns it. The median time from sign-up to a first running workload is under an hour, more than 90 percent of deployments succeed on the first try, and 85 percent of developers who deploy come back to build more.

Runpod’s customers range from independent AI researchers to teams building and serving frontier models. Deep Cogito built its Cogito v1 family of open models entirely on Runpod. “We trained Cogito v1, a family of models that outperforms size equivalent models from LLaMA and DeepSeek, in 75 days with a small team, entirely on Runpod,” said Drishan Arora, Co-Founder and CEO at Deep Cogito. “The ability to iterate fast on world-class GPU infrastructure without building our own cluster is a genuine competitive advantage.”

The platform continues to gain traction across the open-source community. “It’s easy to see why Runpod has resonated so strongly with the broader machine learning community,” said Julien Chaumond, Cofounder and CTO at Hugging Face. “Accessible, flexible compute is core to how we think about democratizing AI, and Runpod is one of the few companies that understands that.”

With this funding, Runpod will invest in the platform and developer experience, expand the team across engineering and developer relations, and broaden global access for developers wherever they build.

“Developers building with AI today need infrastructure that can keep pace with how fast the technology is moving and the flexibility to go from early experiment to production without switching platforms,” said Michael Medici, a Managing Director at Summit Partners who will join the Runpod Board of Directors. “Runpod has built a platform designed to meet these needs, and in our view, the company’s growth trajectory reflects the team’s strong execution against that vision. We believe Runpod is positioned to become a defining infrastructure platform for the next generation of AI developers, and we look forward to supporting Zhen and the team as they continue to scale.”

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC acted as Sole Placement Agent to Runpod in connection with the financing. Cooley LLP acted as external legal counsel to Runpod, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as external legal counsel to Summit Partners.

To learn more, visit runpod.io.

About Runpod
Runpod is the AI Developer Cloud. More than one million developers use Runpod to build, train, fine-tune, deploy, and scale AI on one platform, with self-serve access, transparent per-second pricing, and no commit minimums. Learn more at runpod.io.

About Summit Partners
Summit Partners is a leading growth-focused investment firm. Summit invests across growth sectors of the economy and, since the firm’s founding in 1984, has invested in more than 550 companies in technology, healthcare and other growth industries. Summit maintains offices in North America and Europe and seeks to invest in category-leading, profitable growth companies worldwide. For more information, please visit www.summitpartners.com or follow Summit Partners on LinkedIn.

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SOURCE Runpod

Technology

America’s Largest Political Group Is Getting Its Own Election Night

Published

5 minutes ago

October 26, 2026

A record 45% of Americans identify with neither party. On November 3, they get the first nationally televised Election Night built around the independent voter bloc, presented by United Independents, the organization behind the Independent National Convention, in partnership with DeFiance Media.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Can the country’s largest bloc of voters turn identity into representation? Independents now make up 45% of U.S. adults, a record high in Gallup’s 2025 data, yet partisan coverage continues to dominate mainstream mediums. On November 3, one broadcast will cover the election from the Independent point of view.

Broadcast live from the National Press Club’s television studio in Washington, D.C. Election Night 2026: Independent Edition is an eight-hour program hosted by Christopher Life, founder and CEO of United Independents, and Macy Gunnell, NewsForce’s White House correspondent. DeFiance Media will be producing and streaming the broadcast.

Built on live election data from The Associated Press (AP), the program will call the national races as the returns come in. Then it goes where other broadcasts don’t: race-by-race coverage of independent candidates in consequential congressional contests, and guest conversations with the strategists and organizers behind them.

Built for the Voters Both Parties Are Chasing

Two generations of Americans have come of age as independent voters, and in 74 years of nationally televised Election Night broadcasts, not one has been built around them. This one is: national results and the balance of power, dedicated coverage of the independent candidates who could tip the next Congress, and a live chat with selected viewer questions put to the hosts and guests on air.

Open to Every Newsroom

Television pool feed. U.S. television outlets, including local stations, can carry the program live, in full or in part, separate from DeFiance Media’s full-program streaming.Social streaming. The broadcast streams through participating social media partners. Channels that want to carry it can sign up at Election2026.live.Live clips and excerpts. Newsrooms, commentators, and creators can pull portions of the program for reporting and social distribution while the broadcast is underway.

Request access through the Media & Distribution Access Form at Election2026.live.

Free and Accessible Nationwide

Going live Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026, from 6 PM- 2 AM ET. Updates, guest announcements, and viewing instructions: Election2026.live.

Media Contact

Shaun Saunders
shaun@graffiticreativegroup.com

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/americas-largest-political-group-is-getting-its-own-election-night-302919753.html

SOURCE DeFiance Media

Technology

Pianist Michael Weinstein Wins Best Social Media Music Collaborations at the 2026 Vega Awards

Published

5 minutes ago

October 26, 2026

With more than a million followers across social media, Weinstein’s piano collaborations bring together vocalists from around the world to create unique musical performances and reach new audiences.

SOUTH SALEM, N.Y., Oct. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Pianist, entrepreneur and social media creator Michael Weinstein has been recognized at the 2026 Vega Digital Awards in the Social Media Collaboration category for his music collaboration series, Piano Sessions: Bringing Voices Together Through Music.

“I love collaborating with talented singers including building friendships that have become just as meaningful as the music itself.”

Weinstein has built a social media audience of more than a million followers across TikTok, Instagram and other platforms by sharing piano performances and collaborations with singers from around the world. His videos feature vocalists performing alongside his piano accompaniment, creating intimate musical performances that showcase each artist’s individual talent and style.

While Weinstein has spent much of his professional career building businesses and marketing consumer brands, music has always remained one of his greatest passions.

“Music has always been a huge part of my life and one of the things I enjoy most is collaborating with other musicians,” said Weinstein. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with so many incredibly talented singers and I love being able to play alongside them and create something special together. It’s also rewarding to introduce these artists to new audiences while building relationships and friendships that have become just as meaningful as the music itself.”

An accomplished pianist and keyboardist, Weinstein has collaborated with an impressive range of vocalists, including artists who have performed and recorded with Maroon 5, Sting, John Legend, Alicia Keys, Usher, Lauryn Hill and Jill Scott. He has also collaborated with standout performers from American Idol, America’s Got Talent and The Voice.

Weinstein is also planning a live concert in New York City in 2027, bringing together several of the talented vocalists featured on his social media channels for a special collaborative performance. Additional details will be announced in the coming months.

Outside of music, Weinstein is the Founder and CEO of JAM Direct, a marketing and advertising agency, and former Chief Marketing Officer of Allstar Products Group, where he was responsible for marketing some of the most successful products in “As Seen On TV” history, including the Snuggie, ShamWow and Shake Weight.

Watch Michael Weinstein’s performances here:

https://linktr.ee/mweinsteinmusic

About the Vega Digital Awards

The Vega Digital Awards is an international competition recognizing excellence in social media, digital marketing and brand strategy. Judged by the International Awards Associate (IAA), the competition honors work that demonstrates innovation, effectiveness and measurable impact across the global marketing landscape.

Media Contact

Michael Weinstein, JAM Direct, 1 9146610053, mw@jamdirect.com, https://michaelweinstein.me/

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SOURCE JAM Direct

Technology

Landis+Gyr Secures Major Contract with Leading US Utility

Published

1 hour ago

October 26, 2026

CHAM, Switzerland and ALPHARETTA, Ga., Oct. 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Landis+Gyr Group AG (SIX: LAND), a global energy technology leader driving intelligent innovation across the grid, today announced that it has secured a major contract with a leading US investor-owned electric utility. The agreement covers more than 3 million advanced metering endpoints.

Under the agreement, Landis+Gyr will provide Revelo meters and associated network and head-end system technologies, complemented by advanced security solutions, premium support, and software maintenance and services. The deployment is expected to advance the utility’s grid modernization objectives by enhancing security, grid visibility and operational performance.

“This important win reflects the strong momentum of our Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio and the trust customers place in Landis+Gyr to support large-scale grid modernization programs. By combining advanced metering, integrated technology, security and support capabilities, we look forward to helping this utility enhance grid visibility, reliability and operational performance,” said Peter Mainz, Chief Executive Officer of Landis+Gyr.

About Landis+Gyr

Landis+Gyr is a global energy technology leader, delivering intelligent solutions that connect devices, data, and decisions across the grid. Trusted by more than 2,000 utilities worldwide, we transform traditional devices into intelligent, networked sensors, giving utilities real-time grid visibility and system control. With these combined insights, electric, gas, and water companies can anticipate demand, optimize operations, and deliver energy that’s more reliable, resilient, accessible, safe, and sustainable for everyone. For more information, please visit our website www.landisgyr.com.

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