Google & Y Combinator Back SA-Born Cerebrium In USD 8.5 M Bet On Real-Time AI

Cerebrium, a South African-born startup streamlining how developers build and run AI-powered products, has secured an USD 8.5 M seed round led by Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused VC fund. Y Combinator, Authentic Ventures, and several strategic angels also joined the round.

Founded in 2021 by Michael Louis and Jonathan Irwin, former engineers at OneCart (acquired by Massmart), Cerebrium helps companies launch AI chatbots, video tools, and voice assistants without building heavy infrastructure from scratch.

Its serverless platform scales on demand and prioritises speed, security, and ease of deployment across multiple geographies, including Africa, Europe, and the U.S.

“We built Cerebrium so engineers can focus on real business impact instead of hiring infra teams or racking up six-figure cloud bills,” said Louis.

The platform is gaining traction as more businesses demand real-time, multimodal AI. These are systems that process voice, video, and text at once. Customers like Tavus and Deepgram rely on Cerebrium to keep latency low and uptime high, even during traffic spikes.

The new capital will go toward expanding Cerebrium’s engineering team and building out tools for faster model deployment, secure code execution, and regional data compliance.

As AI becomes more embedded in customer experiences, Cerebrium wants to be the infrastructure powering it quietly but critically in the background.

“Real-time AI will define the next generation of user interfaces,” said Gradient’s Eylul Kayin. “And Cerebrium is well positioned to power that shift.”