Why AI Compute Comes in Rectangles — Erik Bernhardsson, Modal CEO

Modal bets that pooling bursty customer demand beats buying fixed GPU capacity, now at $1B ARR and $16B valuation.

• $750M Series D at $16B: Modal crossed $1B in annualized run rate, up roughly 50x since its last Latent Space appearance two years ago, per CEO Erik Bernhardsson.
• Sandboxes surprise: Launched in 2023 almost as an afterthought (team debated killing it), sandboxes now drive about a third of revenue, fueled by coding agents, Lovable, Ramp, and RL training.

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