Cato

What Cato does

Cato Digital, Inc. is a privately held bare metal cloud provider founded in 2013 and headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, with operational presence in Milpitas, California. The company redeploys second-life high-performance servers originally sourced from Meta and NVIDIA into colocation facilities with stranded or underutilized power capacity, exposing GPU, application, and storage instances to customers via the Cato Metal Console. Its technical differentiation centers on bare metal performance without virtualization overhead, including NVIDIA V100 GPU servers with NVSwitch/NVLink fabric enabling unified memory access across 16 GPUs, a fail-in-place operational model with hot-spare storage configurations, and private VLAN/VXLAN isolation per customer within a pod. Cato also markets a sustainability narrative, citing reduced embedded carbon and being a founding member of the Infrastructure Masons Climate Accord.

Cato's product surface comprises three core lines: GPU servers (V100-based, 8x or 16x configurations up to 512GB VRAM), ephemeral app servers (a0/a1 families with 48 vCPUs and 25–100 Gbps networking), and storage servers ranging from flash arrays to 432TB HDD configurations. Provisioning, lifecycle management, and networking are exposed through a self-serve web console and API at console.cato.digital. The go-to-market is product-led: developers and technical buyers spin up instances directly with no upfront fees, no termination charges, and pay-as-you-go hourly billing. Duration and commitment-based discounts of 15%, 25%, and 40% (1-year prepaid) layer on top, with the company claiming customers typically save 60–75% versus major cloud providers. Enterprise and multi-facility deployments are supported through direct sales engagement.

Revenue mechanics are a mix of subscription (monthly registered servers) and usage-based (hourly on-demand) billing, supplemented by $0.0025/GiB data transfer charges. Distribution is augmented through colocation channel partners (Cyxtera, Hudson Interxchange, Kasi Cloud), a compute marketplace partnership with Cudo Compute, and technology alliances with ITRenew (hardware supply), Schneider Electric, EDJX, DDC Solutions, and others. The company targets AI/ML training and inference, HPC, web application, and storage workloads as a horizontal use-case segmentation, with primary customer segments being developers, startups, and mid-market technical teams seeking lower-cost alternatives to hyperscale virtualized cloud. Leadership comprises CEO Dean Nelson, CTO Karimulla Shaikh, Chief Architect/VP Engineering Brandon Gillespie, VP Business Development Simon Allen, and Director of Operations Breanne Koncurat, supported by an advisory board including the Chairman Peter Gross and Clear Ventures founder Rajeev Madhavan. Cato has disclosed approximately $8.7M in funding (April 2023, investors undisclosed) and 11–50 employees.

Name

Cato

Legal name

Cato Digital, Inc.

Website

https://cato.digital

Company type

Private

Founded year

2013

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Cato Digital operates a self-serve bare metal cloud platform that redeploys second-life Meta and NVIDIA servers into underutilized colocation facilities, offering GPU, application, and storage instances to AI/ML, HPC, and mid-market technical buyers at 60–75% savings versus major cloud providers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Bare Metal Cloud Infrastructure

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (518)

SIC

Services-Computer Rental & Leasing (7377)

akta.pro primary industry

General-Purpose Compute (VMs & Bare Metal IaaS) (HDABAAAA)

akta.pro secondary industry

AI Interconnects & Fabric (NVLink/CXL/PCIe/Switches) (HDAAAAAD)

Keywords

• Bare metal cloud
• GPU server rental
• Second-life hardware
• Ephemeral compute
• Cloud infrastructure

Headquarters

HQ city

Milpitas

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Bare Metal Server Rental: On-demand rental of GPU, application, and storage bare metal servers billed hourly and monthly. Pay-as-you-go with no upfront fees, no termination charges. Duration and commitment-based discount tiers (15% for 1-6 months, 25% for 6-12 months, 40% for 1+ year with prepaid annual). Revenue is a mix of recurring subscription (monthly registered servers) and usage-based (hourly on-demand) billing.
2. Usage-Based Billing: Hourly on-demand rate for all server classes (GPU, App, Storage). Additional data transfer charges at $0.0025/GiB for egress/ingress from Pod. Billed monthly in arrears.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Cato Digital provides on-demand, pay-as-you-go bare metal cloud servers (GPU, application, and storage classes) using redeployed high-performance servers from Meta and NVIDIA hosted in colocation facilities. Customers provision ephemeral instances through the Cato Metal Console or API with hourly and monthly billing plus duration/commitment discounts of up to 40%. The platform targets AI/ML training, HPC, scalable web applications, and large-scale storage workloads at 60-75% lower cost than major cloud providers.

Product overview

Cato Digital offers a portfolio of bare metal cloud services under the Cato Metal brand, consisting of three core product lines: GPU Servers (ephemeral servers with NVIDIA V100 GPUs for AI, deep learning, and HPC workloads), App Servers (scalable ephemeral application servers for web platforms, data processing, and transcoding), and Storage Servers (high-capacity storage for ML training data, media, and edge caching). The Cato Metal Console provides centralized management for all server types. Cato differentiates through sustainability-focused second-life hardware and cost advantages of 60-75% savings versus major cloud providers, with flexible pricing including hourly, weekly, monthly, and annual billing options with duration discounts up to 40%.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• GPU Servers Ephemeral, scalable bare metal servers equipped with NVIDIA V100 GPUs (g2.medium, g2.large, g2.xlarge SKUs) connected via NVSwitch and NVLink, providing unified GPU memory access across 16 GPUs for AI model training, deep learning, machine learning, HPC, and advanced data analytics workloads.
• App Servers Ephemeral, scalable bare metal application servers (a0.large, a0.xlarge, a1.large, a1.xlarge SKUs) for modern web applications, data processing, transcoding, test environments, batch workloads, and distributed availability architectures spanning multiple zones and pods.
• Storage Servers High-capacity bare metal storage servers (s1.large.f4/f8, s1.xlarge.f12/f24, s0.large.m144/m288/m432 SKUs) providing NVMe flash and HDD configurations from 144TB to 432TB per server for ML training corpora, file and media servers, and edge caching for content delivery networks.
• Cato Metal Cato Metal is the overarching bare metal cloud platform providing on-demand GPU, application, and storage servers with pay-as-you-go pricing, no upfront fees, no termination charges, and duration/commitment discount tiers of up to 40%.
• Cato Metal Console Web-based management console and API for starting, stopping, configuring Cato Metal servers, managing network ports, VLANs/VXLANs, and accessing server consoles, enabling API-driven provisioning and lifecycle management.

Quantifiable outcome

• 60-75% cost savings compared to major cloud providers
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Hudson InterxchangecoreTechnology or Integration · 4 June 2025Hudson Interxchange selected DDC Solutions to deploy its S-Series V4 cooling cabinets at the 60 Hudson Street Data Center in New York City. Cato Digital is the inaugural customer, offering bare metal GPU servers within DDC cabinets to meet agentic and inference AI requirements. The S-Series cabinets scale from 15kW to over 600kW per cabinet and support combined air and liquid-to-the-chip cooling.
• DDC SolutionscoreTechnology or Integration · 4 June 2025DDC Solutions' S-Series V4 cooling platform is deployed at Hudson Interxchange's 60 Hudson Street facility. Cato Digital is the inaugural customer, deploying bare metal GPU servers within DDC cooling cabinets to support high-density inference and agentic AI workloads.
• Cudo ComputecoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 5 December 2024Cato Digital and Cudo Compute announced a partnership for high-performance, low-cost cloud solutions. The partnership enables Cato to extend reach through Cudo's distributed compute marketplace while offering Cudo users access to Cato's bare metal GPU and compute infrastructure.
• CyxteraminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCato Digital is listed as a partner provider on Cyxtera's marketplace storefront, enabling Cyxtera's customers to access Cato's bare metal services directly through the Cyxtera Marketplace.
• Kasi CloudminorChannel Partner/ Reseller/ DistributorCato partnered with Kasi Cloud as a colo partner to expand geographic coverage of its bare metal platform globally.
• Schneider ElectriccoreTechnology or IntegrationSchneider Electric is listed as a technology partner supporting Cato's bare metal and M9 offerings. Schneider Electric also supports the NREL Chip-to-Grid Consortium for seamless integration between data center development and utility systems.
• ITRenewcoreOthersITRenew is a global leader in Circular Cloud and sustainable data center infrastructure. The company supplies Cato with second-life servers and rack-scale server solutions. Cato's ICE Switches are deployed in ITRenew's solutions, enabling software-defined power.
• EDJXcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerEDJX is building a sustainable edge computing platform combining EDJX's serverless platform with integrated rack-scale server solutions by ITRenew equipped with Cato's ICE Switches. The platform aims for 50% price/performance advantage and 70% reduction in embedded carbon vs. conventional cloud.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Lambda Labs: Lambda operates GPU cloud clusters and on-demand instances for deep learning workloads, targeting AI researchers and engineers. Its product model — on-demand and reserved NVIDIA GPU instances — closely mirrors Cato's GPU and App Server offerings, with comparable developer-focused GTM motion.
• Crusoe: Crusoe builds sustainable computing infrastructure using stranded/curtailed energy and second-life assets, providing GPU cloud services for AI. It mirrors Cato's sustainability narrative around underutilized resources while competing for the same AI compute workloads.
• Vast.ai: Vast.ai operates a marketplace for affordable GPU compute, pooling third-party NVIDIA hardware for ML developers. It competes with Cato's GPU Servers on cost-per-hour and developer self-service access, addressing similar AI/ML training and inference customers.
• RunPod: RunPod provides on-demand and reserved GPU cloud instances plus serverless inference endpoints for AI workloads. Its pay-as-you-go GPU pricing and developer-facing console parallel Cato's GPU and App Server products.
• CoreWeave: CoreWeave is a GPU-specialized cloud provider built for AI training and inference workloads, offering bare metal and virtualized NVIDIA GPU instances. It is the most direct competitor to Cato Digital's GPU Server product line, targeting the same AI/ML and HPC developers with on-demand GPU compute.

Broad incumbents

• OVHcloud: OVHcloud offers dedicated bare metal servers, hosted private cloud, and public cloud across global regions with a value-pricing orientation. It competes with Cato in the affordable bare-metal server segment for compute, storage, and now GPU workloads.
• DigitalOcean: DigitalOcean provides a broad cloud portfolio including droplets, managed databases, and bare-metal dedicated servers targeting developers and SMBs. While DigitalOcean is broader in scope, its bare-metal and GPU droplet offerings compete for the same cost-sensitive developer audience.
• Vultr: Vultr provides global cloud infrastructure including bare metal servers, virtual instances, and GPU instances targeting developers. Its self-service console and global metro footprint parallel Cato's API-driven, colo-partner-distributed model.

Emerging players

• Together AI: Together AI offers AI-focused cloud infrastructure with GPU clusters for training and inference. It overlaps with Cato's AI/GPU server segment, particularly for LLM workloads, while also building higher-level inference services that Cato does not offer.
• Hetzner: Hetzner operates low-cost dedicated server hosting and cloud infrastructure with a strong cost-leadership reputation in Europe. While less focused on GPU/AI than Cato, it competes in the affordable bare-metal compute segment for budget-constrained workloads.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks7 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/CatoDigitalInc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/cato

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles8 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Cato