Granulate’s fate uncertain amid Intel layoffs, less than three years after $650M acquisition
Granulate’s fate uncertain amid Intel layoffs, less than three years after $650M acquisition
Intel’s sweeping layoffs and cost-cutting moves mean Granulate’s operations and workforce are also in jeopardy.
Less than three years after being acquired by Intel for $650 million, the future of Granulate is uncertain. Intel is set to lay off hundreds of employees in Israel in the coming week, and it remains to be seen how many from Granulate will be among them.
Granulate currently employs around 100 people, and the possibility of closing it completely or attempting to sell it to another company is also believed to have been considered.
Granulate develops real-time, continuous optimization software that helps cloud and data center customers maximize compute workload performance and reduce infrastructure and cloud costs. Founded in 2018 by Asaf Ezra (CEO) and Tal Saiag (CTO), Granulate raised a total of $45 million before being acquired by Intel.
“At Intel, Granulate will be able to deliver autonomous optimization capabilities to even more customers globally and rapidly expand its offering with the help of Intel’s 19,000 software engineers,” Granulate’s CEO Ezra said at the time of the acquisition.
Granulate’s autonomous optimization service reduces CPU utilization and application latencies by learning the customer’s application and deploying a customized set of continuous optimizations at runtime. This enables deployment on smaller compute clusters and instance types, improving application performance and lowering cloud and data center costs.
Intel and Granulate’s relationship began in late 2019 when Granulate was part of the first graduating class of Intel Ignite, Intel's startup accelerator program, which is also being shut down as part of the cutbacks.
The first phase of cutbacks was revealed in August when Intel announced a $10 billion cost-cutting plan, which included laying off 15,000 employees—15% of its workforce—and implementing targeted measures like canceling leasing programs and reducing employee benefits. The second phase followed last month, with the announcement that Intel’s foundry division—the business of manufacturing chips for other companies—will become an independent subsidiary with its own board of directors.
