# Paperspace: physical AI company

Canonical ID: `e957c8c5-cf87-4d8a-ae6c-b9766abaf353`

## Key facts

- **Founded:** 2014 in New York by [Dillon Erb](/people/dillon-erb.md) and [Daniel Kobran](/people/daniel-kobran.md)
- **Headquarters:** New York, NY (distributed team)
- **Ownership:** Acquired by DigitalOcean in July 2023 for approximately $111 million in cash
- **Parent company status:** Operates as the GPU cloud and ML-platform arm of DigitalOcean (NYSE: DOCN)
- **Total funding pre-acquisition:** Approximately $36 million disclosed
- **Notable investors:** Y Combinator (W15), Initialized Capital, Battery Ventures, Intel Capital, SineWave Ventures
- **GPU inventory:** Not publicly disclosed; catalog includes NVIDIA H100 alongside a range of older NVIDIA GPUs. No public MW or fleet count.
- **Silicon partnerships:** NVIDIA Elite Partner; historical Graphcore IPU partnership for on-demand IPUs
- **Positioning:** Developer and long-tail ML tenants via the Gradient notebook/workflow platform and per-second GPU billing; not a hyperscale training-cluster provider
- **User base claim:** Approximately 500,000 users cited by the company (self-reported)
- **Datacenter footprint:** Not publicly detailed; runs on colocation infrastructure rather than owned campuses. No disclosed megawatt figure.

- **Slug:** paperspace
- **Status:** active
- **Founded:** 2014
- **HQ:** New York, NY, United States
- **Funding total (USD):** 36000000

## Models

_No models registered._

## Current leadership (2)

- [Dillon Erb](/people/dillon-erb.md) Co-founder and former CEO (_reported, not verified_)
- [Daniel Kobran](/people/daniel-kobran.md) Co-founder and former COO (_reported, not verified_)

## Supplies to

_No verified supply relationships on file. Supply-chain coverage is being added across the registry; check back as the seed populates this company's outbound edges._

_Outbound supply edges. Each appears when verified with at least two strong sources. Sources are append-only; corrections add new sources rather than rewrite history._

## Common questions

### What is 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.\n\nIn 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.\n\nRelative 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.

### What does Paperspace make?

Paperspace has no robot models recorded on the DEPLOY registry. Paperspace builds physical robots.

### Is Paperspace publicly traded?

Paperspace is not independently listed on public markets; it is part of DigitalOcean in July 2023 for approximately $111 million in cash | Parent company status: Operates as the GPU cloud and ML-platform arm of DigitalOcean (NYSE: DOCN on the DEPLOY registry.

### How can I invest in Paperspace?

Paperspace has no separately traded stock; it is owned by DigitalOcean in July 2023 for approximately $111 million in cash | Parent company status: Operates as the GPU cloud and ML-platform arm of DigitalOcean (NYSE: DOCN (the parent is the entity that trades, where it is public).

### Where is Paperspace headquartered?

Paperspace is headquartered in New York, NY, United States.

### How much funding has Paperspace raised?

Paperspace has raised approximately $36M in disclosed funding on record in the DEPLOY registry.

### Who owns Paperspace?

Paperspace is owned by DigitalOcean in July 2023 for approximately $111 million in cash | Parent company status: Operates as the GPU cloud and ML-platform arm of DigitalOcean (NYSE: DOCN, per the DEPLOY registry.

### Is Paperspace a top robotics company?

On DEPLOY's intelligence score, which blends verified deployments, funding, hiring, media, safety, and IP signals, Paperspace ranks in roughly the top 99% of companies tracked by the registry.

### When was Paperspace founded?

Paperspace was founded in 2014.


## Sources (4)

1. https://www.paperspace.com/
2. https://www.paperspace.com/about
3. https://investors.digitalocean.com/news/news-details/2023/DigitalOcean-Completes-Acquisition-of-Paperspace/default.aspx
4. https://www.digitalocean.com/

## The verified answers

- [Which companies have the most robots deployed](/which-companies-have-the-most-robots-deployed.md)
- [Which operators run the most robots](/which-operators-run-the-most-robots.md)
- [Which robot operators cover the most countries](/which-robot-operators-cover-the-most-countries.md)

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