A dating app, a student registration rush, and a Texas storm reveal the same awkward truth: software can look perfectly healthy until people need it all at once.
Espresso AI is a New York-based startup that uses large language models and machine learning to automatically cut cloud data-warehouse bills. Founded in 2023 by three former Googlers, it markets a 'neural optimizer' - a set of AI agents that autoscale, schedule and rewrite SQL on platforms like Snowflake and Databricks, promising up to ~70% cost savings without changing query results. The company emerged from stealth in May 2024 with $11M in seed funding from Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and FirstMark.