AI Cloud Startup Runpod Hits $120M in ARR — And it Started With a Reddit Post
How AI cloud startup Runpod scaled to $120M in annual revenue—starting with a single Reddit post and basement GPUs.
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AI Cloud Startup Runpod Hits $120M in ARR — And it Started With a Reddit Post
Runpod Hits $120M ARR After Humble Reddit Beginnings What does it take for an AI infrastructure startup to hit $120 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in under four years—with no initial funding, no Silicon Valley pedigree, and zero marketing budget? For Runpod, the answer started in two New Jersey basements, a defunct crypto mining hobby, and one well-timed Reddit post that caught a venture capitalist’s eye. Credit: under a Runpod license Founded by former Comcast developers Zhen Lu and Pardeep Singh, Runpod has quietly become one of the fastest-growing platforms for hosting and scaling AI applications. Unlike many AI startups racing to build flashy chatbots or multimodal models, Runpod focused on the unglamorous—but essential—backbone of the AI boom: accessible, developer-friendly cloud infrastructure optimized for GPU workloads. And it’s working. With developers, indie hackers, and even enterprise teams now relying on its platform, Runpod’s growth story offers a masterclass in t…
