Around 30% of your cloud spend is wasted – and this startup just raised $3 million, pre-Seed, to tackle the problem

An AI-based “cloud waste” startup has raised $3 million in pre-Seed funding to help companies save billions on their cloud costs.

The round for Optimaze was led by Arconic and The Innovation Club. The Sydney startup is currently in private beta, with a waitlist for preview access to the software.

The funding is to expand its engineering team, accelerate the product roadmap, and set up strategic partnerships with cloud services, kicking off with AWS.

Australian spending on cloud computing is expected to hit $15 billion next year, and Gartner estimates at least 30% of cloud spend is wasted.

But Optimaze founders Ralf Capel and Dawshiek Yogathasar believe the real cost and inefficiency could be significantly higher than $4.5 billion, especially when the environmental impacts are also taken into account.

“Cloud waste has spiralled out of control, costing businesses billions and demanding roughly 1% of global energy consumption,” Capel said.

“Instead of addressing the root cause, today companies are pouring more money into expanding cloud infrastructure and financial operations, making the problem exponentially worse.

“We have seen first hand how cloud literate companies reduce their on demand cloud use by well over 30% through clever optimisation,” he said.

His cofounder, Dawshiek Yogathasar said they hope to also reduce human tasks, such as tagging resources, by up to 90%, and improve the environmental impact.

“The energy waste in Australian cloud environments is already staggering and as AI workloads intensify, energy consumption is becoming a major bottleneck,” he said.

Arconic’s Anthony Potts said that cloud spend is already the largest controllable cost after payroll.

“It’s exploding as every business from SMBs to corporates deploy AI-heavy GPU workloads,” he said.

“Businesses will increasingly need to quantify which workloads create the most value. Optimaze’s AI agents deliver that insight in real time and automates fixes, setting a new standard for financial and environmental accountability in the cloud.”

Globally, the spend on cloud services is expected to top $1.5 trillion by 2026.