Cloud Service Provider DigitalOcean Acquires Paperspace

DigitalOcean, a cloud hosting company, has acquired a New York-based cloud computing and artificial intelligence development startup. Namely, it announced that it has agreed to acquire Paperspace for $111 million in cash. What did DigitalOcean CEO Yancey Spruill say? Paperspace's infrastructure and tools, once integrated with DigitalOcean products, will enable customers to more easily test, develop and deploy AI applications. As for Paperspace customers, they will benefit from DigitalOcean's cloud services, including databases, storage, application hosting, documentation, tutorials and a robust support system.

Also See: Advertising and Video Services MotionWorks Receives Investment

Paperspace Will Remain an Independent Business Unit within DigitalOcean

For now, Paperspace will remain an independent business unit within DigitalOcean. Also, Paperspace customers will not see any sudden changes in their services.

What do we know about Paperspace? Co-founded in 2014 by University of Michigan graduates Daniel Kobran and Dillon Erb. Backed by Y Combinator and Jeff Carr, one of the founders of DigitalOcean, the company operates its own data centers with custom-configured GPUs. For Paperspace, the initial focus was on low-cost virtual machines that provide high-performance workstations for design, visualization and gaming in the cloud. But when AI entered the mainstream, Paperspace launched a suite of tools designed to develop, train, deploy and host AI models in the cloud. It leaned hard on AI offerings.

Meanwhile, it raised $35 million from investors such as Paperspace, Battery Ventures, Intel Capital, SineWave Ventures and Sorenson Capital before the acquisition. According to the information obtained, it is a smart move for DigitalOcean, which risks being left behind in the increase in cloud artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions. Because, while the company's revenue increased 29.7 percent to $ 165.13 million in the first quarter of 2023, earnings per share, return on equity and net profit margin were below expectations.