Paperspace

Paperspace is a GPU cloud and machine learning platform founded in 2014 by Dillon Erb and Daniel Kobran, and headquartered in New York. It began as a browser-accessible virtual desktop backed by GPUs and evolved into a developer-focused ML platform (Gradient) offering notebooks, workflows, and per-second-billed GPU instances. The company raised roughly $36 million from Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, Battery Ventures, Intel Capital, and SineWave Ventures before being acquired.

In July 2023 DigitalOcean bought Paperspace for approximately $111 million in cash to anchor its AI and ML strategy, and Paperspace has since been folded into DigitalOcean's GPU cloud offering (marketed alongside DigitalOcean's own H100 droplets). The platform positions itself toward the long tail of ML developers and small teams rather than hyperscale training tenants, leaning on per-second billing, notebook-first workflows, and a claim of savings versus the large clouds.

Relative to the rest of the neocloud pack (CoreWeave, Lambda, Crusoe, Nebius), Paperspace is a mid-market and long-tail play rather than a hyperscale training cloud: it does not disclose an owned campus footprint or a megawatt figure, and its GPU inventory numbers are not publicly reported. Its distinctive asset is the Gradient developer surface and the DigitalOcean distribution channel rather than raw fleet scale.