Featherless.ai
Featherless.ai is a San Francisco-based serverless AI inference provider offering an OpenAI-compatible API that exposes 30,000+ open-source models across text, vision, audio, and code modalities to individual developers, open-source model creators, agent builders, and enterprise customers with sovereignty or private-deployment needs.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2023
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingSoftware
What Featherless.ai does
Featherless.ai is a San Francisco-headquartered serverless AI inference provider, incorporated as a Delaware LLC and founded in 2023 (formerly known as Recursal). It offers an OpenAI-compatible REST API at api.featherless.ai that exposes 30,000+ open-source models across language, vision, audio, code, and multimodal modalities through a single endpoint, eliminating the need for customers to provision GPUs, configure inference servers, or manage quantization. Underlying the platform is a proprietary optimization stack spanning inference, model, and workflow optimization, with native integration on AMD's ROCm hardware via a strategic partnership, and research outputs from its wholly-owned Recursal Labs arm including the RWKV architecture (contributed to the Linux Foundation), the KVM novel attention architecture, and the RADLADS distillation method that converts large transformers to alternative-attention architectures at roughly 250x lower cost.
The company monetises primarily through flat-rate monthly subscriptions (Basic $10, Premium $25, Agent Standard $100, Agent Pro $200) with unlimited tokens and concurrency-based limits, billed via Stripe, alongside custom enterprise contracts for private deployments, SLAs, and multi-agent rollouts. Its go-to-market is a hybrid of self-serve API-first and product-led growth, supplemented by a community-led Builder Series that has sponsored 3,000+ open-source AI builders across 19 countries, and an emerging enterprise sales motion routed through HubSpot. Beyond raw inference, Featherless has expanded into a managed open-source agent marketplace (OpenClaw, Hermes Agent by Nous Research, NemoClaw) with sandboxing via Daytona, persistent storage, and flat-rate pricing targeted at 24/7 autonomous workflows. Customer segments include individual AI developers, open-source model creators (6,000+ hosted), agent developers, and enterprises with sovereignty or private-deployment requirements.
As of April 2026, Featherless has raised approximately $25 million across a $5M seed round (March 2025) and a $20M Series A co-led by AMD Ventures and Airbus Ventures with participation from BMW i Ventures, Kickstart Ventures, Panache Ventures, and Wavemaker Ventures. The company employs 51-100 staff distributed across San Francisco (HQ), Toronto, Singapore, and multiple European countries, with infrastructure spanning the EU and US. Co-founders are Eugene Cheah (CEO), Harrison Vanderbyl (CTO), and Wesley George (COO).
Featherless.ai firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Featherless.ai
- Legal name
- Featherless
- Website
- https://featherless.ai
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2023
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- Featherless.ai is a San Francisco-based serverless AI inference provider offering an OpenAI-compatible API that exposes 30,000+ open-source models across text, vision, audio, and code modalities to individual developers, open-source model creators, agent builders, and enterprise customers with sovereignty or private-deployment needs.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Featherless.ai industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Cloud LLM Inference
- NAICS
- Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182), Software Publishers (513210)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Serverless & Functions-as-a-Service (FaaS) (HDABAAAC)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- End-to-End Enterprise AI Platforms (MLOps & Model Lifecycle Management) (HDAEANAA), Agents & Autonomous Workflows (Tool Use, Planning, Multi-Agent) (HDAAACAF)
Keywords
Where Featherless.ai is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices4 records
Markets served
Featherless.ai business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Flat-rate monthly subscriptions: Primary revenue stream: tiered monthly subscriptions (Basic $10, Premium $25, Agent Standard $100, Agent Pro $200) with unlimited tokens, billed via Stripe. Includes concurrency limits and context-window caps per tier. Renewals can be canceled any time; current month non-refundable.
- Agent marketplace managed-runtime plans: Subscription revenue from managed agent runtimes (OpenClaw, Hermes Agent, NemoClaw) bundled with inference, sandbox, persistent storage, and pricing — Standard $100/month, Pro $200/month, Enterprise custom.
- Enterprise custom contracts: Custom enterprise engagements for private environments, regional sovereignty, production-grade assurance, dedicated resources, SLA, and multi-agent deployment.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Monthly | Basic — $10/month, models up to 15B, 2 concurrent connections, up to 16K context |
| Subscription | Monthly | Premium — $25/month, access to DeepSeek/Kimi/GLM and any model size, 4 concurrent, up to 32K context |
| Subscription | Monthly | Agent Standard — $100/month, models up to 229B, 8 concurrent, 256K context, 1 agent runtime, standard sandbox, persistent storage |
| Subscription | Monthly | Agent Pro — $200/month, any model no size limit, larger sandbox |
| Subscription | Monthly | OpenClaw Standard — $100/month, 1 agent runtime, full inference, standard sandbox, persistent storage |
| Subscription | Monthly | OpenClaw Pro — $200/month, additional models, browser-use, larger sandbox |
| Other | Multi-year contract | Enterprise — Custom pricing, multi-agent deployment, dedicated resources, enterprise security |
Go-to-market motion4 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels9 records
Featherless.ai product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Featherless.ai operates a serverless AI/LLM inference platform providing an OpenAI-compatible API at api.featherless.ai that gives developers single-endpoint access to 30,000+ open-source models without GPU provisioning or inference-server setup. The company sells tiered flat-rate monthly subscriptions ($10 Basic, $25 Premium, $100 Agent Standard, $200 Agent Pro, plus Enterprise custom) with unlimited tokens and concurrency-based rate limits, and additionally offers a managed runtime marketplace for open-source AI agents such as OpenClaw and Hermes Agent.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Recursal Labs: The company's internal research group responsible for advancing foundational model architecture research, including the creation of the RWKV architecture and ongoing KVM (Key-Value Means) research.
- OpenClaw
- Phoenix
Products and services
- Featherless Serverless LLM Inference Platform Core open-source AI inference platform providing an OpenAI-compatible REST API at api.featherless.ai that exposes 30,000+ open-source LLM, vision, audio, and multimodal models through a single API key. Eliminates the need for users to provision GPUs, configure inference servers, or manage model quantization.
- Managed OpenClaw Runtime Managed runtime for the open-source OpenClaw AI coding agent, providing a secure Daytona-powered sandboxed environment, persistent storage, 24/7 runtime, and access to the full 30,000+ model catalog with flat-rate monthly pricing.
- Hermes Agent on Featherless Marketplace
Companies that use Featherless.ai
Customer profileNamed customers9 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Featherless.ai technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration8 records
AI capability13 records
Feature7 records
Featherless.ai partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Seven partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and core.
- AMD (AMD Ventures + ROCm)flagshipStrategic partnership with AMD for hardware diversity and native integration on AMD's open-source ROCm platform. Through this partnership, significant open-source models run natively on AMD accelerators, enabling 'from model to metal' openness, lower inference costs, more available compute, and no lock-in. AMD Ventures also co-led the $20M Series A.
- DaytonacoreFeatherless partnered with Daytona to build the sandbox layer for its managed agent runtime. Daytona's multi-layer container isolation provides each agent with a secure workspace and persistent storage so multi-day workflows can run unattended.
- Nous ResearchcoreNous Research's Hermes Agent is hosted in the Featherless agent marketplace as the first major third-party agent integration. Hermes Agent runs persistent, multi-session agents with 40+ built-in tools; on Featherless it has access to the full 30,000+ model catalog.
- Hugging FaceflagshipFeatherless is positioned as the fastest-growing inference partner in the Hugging Face ecosystem. Hugging Face OAuth is offered as a sign-up method; supported models are sourced from the Hugging Face trending list and model creators publish to Featherless via Hugging Face collections (e.g., recursal/key-value-means).
- OpenClawcoreOpenClaw is the first agent Featherless launched in its managed agent marketplace; it is an open-source AI coding agent (250,000+ GitHub stars, 50,000+ forks) hosted on Featherless inference.
- Linux Foundation (RWKV)flagshipFeatherless's team created RWKV, a significant open-source foundational model architecture challenging transformer dominance, which is contributed to the Linux Foundation as a Linux Foundation project.
- Recursal (predecessor brand / research arm)coreFeatherless.ai was formerly known as Recursal. Recursal Labs continues as the company's research group publishing original research (RWKV, KVM, RADLADS) — feeds Featherless's optimization stack and differentiates the platform.
Scale indicators11 records
Recent moves7 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Featherless.ai competitors and assessment
Company assessmentMarket position
Strengths4 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Featherless.ai social profiles
Digital presenceFeatherless.ai compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance3 records
Featherless.ai financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Featherless.ai leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles3 records
Featherless.ai subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries1 record
Featherless.ai funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds2 records
Investors13 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Featherless.ai M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Featherless.ai
What does Featherless.ai do?
Featherless.ai operates a serverless AI/LLM inference platform providing an OpenAI-compatible API at api.featherless.ai that gives developers single-endpoint access to 30,000+ open-source models without GPU provisioning or inference-server setup. The company sells tiered flat-rate monthly subscriptions ($10 Basic, $25 Premium, $100 Agent Standard, $200 Agent Pro, plus Enterprise custom) with unlimited tokens and concurrency-based rate limits, and additionally offers a managed runtime marketplace for open-source AI agents such as OpenClaw and Hermes Agent.
Is Featherless.ai a public or private company?
Featherless.ai is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Featherless.ai founded?
Featherless.ai was founded in 2023. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Featherless.ai based?
Featherless.ai is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Featherless.ai make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Flat-rate monthly subscriptions are the primary driver. The others are agent marketplace managed-runtime plans and enterprise custom contracts.
Does Featherless.ai have an API?
Yes. Public OpenAI-compatible inference REST API hosted at https://api.featherless.ai/v1. Provides serverless access to 30,000+ open-source LLM models with a single API key. Authenticated via API key, supports OpenAI SDK and chat completions endpoint with model identifier substitution (e.g., model='zai-org/GLM-5.2'). No prompts or completions are logged. Plans impose concurrency-based rate limits (e.g., Basic: 2 concurrent, Premium: 4, Agent Standard: 8). Developer documentation is at featherless.ai/docs/overview.
What industry is Featherless.ai in?
Featherless.ai's product category is Cloud LLM Inference. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDABAAAC, Serverless & Functions-as-a-Service (FaaS), with a secondary code of HDAEANAA, End-to-End Enterprise AI Platforms (MLOps & Model Lifecycle Management). Its NAICS code is 5182 and its SIC code is 7372.