Investing in Gradient
Developer API that helps companies build private AI applications that they own.
The advent of large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 has sparked great interest among developers and companies looking to leverage AI. However, effectively fine-tuning and deploying these massive models comes with significant technical challenges. Unlike typical machine learning models, the huge size of LLMs — commonly billions of parameters — makes them unwieldy to work with using standard tools and infrastructure. Successfully adopting them requires high-performance compute capabilities, clean high-quality datasets, engineering expertise, and careful optimization of hyper-parameters. For both large and small teams with limited resources, these hurdles often prove difficult to overcome. The availability of LLMs does not instantly translate to ease of use. To tap into the promise of these powerful models requires capability to properly train, iterate, and integrate them into production applications.
While many platforms have been released for inference and fine-tuning on closed-source models, there is no equivalent service for the open source ecosystem. Each round of fine-tuning produces a new model state that must be versioned and made available for future inference.
Gradient
Gradient is a developer platform with an intuitive framework for fine-tuning and inference, dramatically simplifying the implementation of AI-driven solutions across industries. With just a few lines of code, developers can tap into the power of advanced language models, harnessing their potential like never before.
There are 4 key features of the Gradient platform:
Simple Fine-Tuning: Tailor state-of-the-art LLMs to your specific needs, leveraging the platform's user-friendly interface and robust tools.
Flexible Inference APIs: Integrate seamlessly into existing applications and services, reducing the barriers to entry for AI implementation.
Fully Private LLMs: Maintain full ownership and privacy of your data. Any LLM developed on the platform is only accessible to the developer who makes it.
Pay-As-You-Go Pricing: Unlike other offerings, developers only pay per token, whether they are fine-tuning or generating completions on the platform.
Developers receive many benefits by using Gradient, including:
Rapid Development: Reduce the AI development cycle with simple web APIs, accessible via an easy-to-use CLI, Python SDK, and Javascript SDK.
Cost-Effective: Gradient’s platform is truly on demand — developers only need to pay for the tokens consumed during the fine-tuning or inference process.
State of the Art: Gradient supports state-of-the-art LLMs, including Llama2, StarcoderPlus, and Nous Hermes.
“Gradient represents a new era of AI customization and deployment," said Chris Chang, CEO of Gradient. "Our API platform abstracts away the complexities of working with open-source models. We are democratizing access to custom, private models to any software developer.”
I’m thrilled to be an early investor in Gradient alongside my friends at WingVC, Mango Capital, Global Founders Capital, Secure Octane, Allison Pickens (ex-COO of Gainsight), and the founding team of Looker (Lloyd Tabb, Ben Porterfield).