Israeli AI Startup Inferize Acquired by Nebius for Up to $150 Million

Cloud company Nebius announced today the acquisition of Israeli startup Inferize, in a deal whose official sum was not disclosed but is estimated to be between $100 million and $150 million. Inferize was founded in January 2026 by CEO Guy Burtnikov and CTO Lior Gurbonus, who were previously part of the founding team at Granulate, which was acquired by Intel.

The company, which raised a seed round led by TLV Partners and other investors, has 17 employees at its Tel Aviv offices. Inferize developed technology to optimize AI inference processes, aiming to reduce the time required to deploy and scale large AI models and enable faster adjustment of computing resources to demand changes. A key challenge addressed by the technology is the 'Cold Start' problem, where significant time is needed to load AI models onto GPUs before they can process requests, leading to underutilization of expensive hardware.

According to Nebius, the Inferize team developed a working prototype within three months of the company's founding. Following the acquisition, Inferize's team and technology will be integrated into Nebius Token Factory, the company's managed inference platform, which allows businesses and developers to run AI models in production environments. This move is part of Nebius's strategy to expand its AI infrastructure operations.

Nebius, traded on Nasdaq, has been expanding its technological operations by integrating Israeli technologies and teams, while also advancing its infrastructure activities in Israel. TLV Partners was the sole investor in Inferize, according to sources. Shachar Zafiri, managing partner at TLV Partners, described the rapid exit as an exceptional achievement for the company and its team, noting that the fund's familiarity with the founders stemmed partly from their prior investment in Granulate.

The acquisition comes as companies in the AI infrastructure sector focus on the efficiency of deploying models in production, not just raw processing power. For Nebius, Inferize's technology is expected to enhance its inference layer, enabling more work to be done per available GPU. Burtnikov stated that a primary goal of founding Inferize was to reduce the costs associated with maintaining idle backup GPUs for demand surges, a goal that will now be pursued within Nebius.