alt Hacker NewsWhy Replicate is joining Cloudflare
Comments
I gave Replicate a shot but needed to run on my own GPUs, so I initially used Cog to port the workload.
I quickly realized Cog was an obstacle rather than an accelerator. I replaced it with a lightweight FastAPI layer, which immediately unblocked me:
1. Native I/O with Google Cloud Storage.
2. Freedom to use the latest Torch and Nvidia Docker images without abstraction overhead.
3. Running Torch and TensorFlow in parallel (legacy model constraints that Cog struggled with).
The answer to that question is likely this acquisition.
The standalone AI middleware market is precarious; the landscape shifts too fast and technical founders will eventually outgrow the training wheels.
Folding into Cloudflare gives the team a sustainable home to leverage the platform's scale, rather than competing solely on a container abstraction layer.
Wish them the best. Cloudflare’s infrastructure is likely the right environment to turn this into a high-leverage product
I searched but could not find the "bought" or "money" or "dollar" or "stock" words in the marketing fluff piece, so it definitely does not answer the question in the title.
What was the value of the transaction?
It's maybe obvious why Replicate might want to be part of Cloudflare.
It's less obvious why Cloudflare want Replicate.
As for the price:
> Replicate has raised $52.5M in funding from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital, with last known valuation of $350M [2023]
It would be interesting to know how much hype there is in valuations since 2023. I assume it's mostly vesting options because I doubt Cloudflare has the cash to throw around. I would guess $500M valuation but I could be off by a lot.
So how long until Cloudflare joins the hated monopolies list?
Okay, this is the kind of post I have not read and will never read but I will still comment.
Why Replicate is joining Cloudflare? Because you paid money to acquire it. Why the fuck else? Ffs.
Because Replicate has no chance of beating Fal or Together?
Hmm, an AI company joining Cloudflare, a company's whose major strength is to take their customer's websites offline, selling it as saving the internet and such.
Maybe when the AI overlords take over Cloudflare will be our last bastion of defense. :D
Because capitalism structurally favors the concentration of power and wealth.
> Why Replicate is joining Cloudflare
Because a lot of money was transferred from Cloudflare's bank account to the bank accounts of the stockholders of Replicate?