Is Vast.ai profitable in 2026?

No public profitability figures exist. Vast.ai says its revenue grew 13x and crossed seven figures per month for the first time as of March 2026 (self-reported, unaudited), but no profit or margin data has been disclosed.

Who is Vast.ai's biggest competitor?

RunPod is Vast.ai's closest direct rival, running an identical GPU marketplace model. RunPod raised $100M at a $1B valuation in June 2026 with over 1 million developers and about $240M annualized revenue, dwarfing Vast.ai's scale.

Could AI replace Vast.ai's marketplace business?

Unlikely directly. Vast.ai frames AI agents as a demand driver, having shipped an agent skill in May 2026 letting Claude and Codex CLI tools provision GPUs directly through Vast, positioning itself as infrastructure for agentic AI rather than a target for replacement.

Vast.ai is privately held, founded by CEO Jake Cannell and Christian Horne, incorporated in Delaware on June 28, 2016. Its only disclosed funding round is a $4 million seed in July 2024 led by DRW Venture Capital, as of June 2026.

How does Vast.ai's GPU pricing compare to competitors?

As of June 2026, Vast.ai lists H100 rentals from $1.47 to $2.27 per hour versus $6.16 per hour on CoreWeave, and RTX 4090s from $0.29 per hour, making it one of the cheapest GPU marketplaces tracked by gpucloudcost.com.

Is Vast.ai raising new funding to compete with RunPod?

No new institutional round has been publicly reported as of July 2026. Vast.ai remains largely bootstrapped with just a $4M seed from 2024, while rival RunPod raised $100M at a $1B valuation in June 2026.

AI companies and labs · United States

Vast.ai

vast.ai ↗

Vast.ai runs a marketplace where anyone rents out spare GPUs to AI developers at low prices.

Losing its protection

Assessed 21 July 2026 · Evidence as of 21 July 2026

The structural protection is eroding.

On the recordSince 21 July 2026 · Checkable from next 6-12 months · Every call on the record Checkpoint: Whether Vast.ai closes a comparable institutional round to match RunPod's war chest

The call

Vast.ai built a working low-price GPU marketplace, but RunPod is running the same playbook with far more capital and pulling ahead on scale.

Vast.ai lets people rent out unused graphics processors to AI developers, competing directly with RunPod on price and available machines. The company has real customers and real growth, but RunPod just raised $100 million and is already taking customers away because it has more money to spend on better service and marketing. The deciding factor will be whether Vast.ai can raise serious funding soon, or whether it stays smaller and becomes just the budget option while RunPod becomes the main choice.

Why

AI pressure: None apparent. AI compute demand is what feeds Vast.ai, not what threatens it; the risk here is competitive, not algorithmic. Could AI do the core job? Unlikely.

Bigger players: RunPod. RunPod just raised $100M at a $1B valuation, reports ~$240M annualized revenue and 1M+ developers, and runs the identical low-price GPU marketplace model. Could a giant copy it? Probably.

What protects it. Real two-sided liquidity: 1,000+ hosts, ~20,000 GPUs, 120,000+ developers, and the lowest listed prices among major GPU clouds.

What would change this call

Vast.ai announces an institutional funding round beyond its $4M seed within 12 months. Would show it can match RunPod's capital and defend its marketplace liquidity.
Ramp or Brex procurement rankings show Vast.ai's GPU-cloud category share rising or falling versus RunPod next year. Would indicate whether real customers are shifting spend toward or away from Vast.ai.
Vast.ai's enterprise adoption share (vs micro-SMB) in Ramp data changes materially over the next year. Would show whether Vast.ai is breaking out of low-value customers or staying niche.

Key numbers

RunPod: $100M raise, $1B valuation (Jun 2026)
Vast.ai: only $4M seed disclosed (Jul 2024)
H100 from $1.47/hr on Vast vs $6.16/hr on CoreWeave (Jun 2026)

Named risks

RunPod's 10x capital advantage and scale could permanently tip marketplace liquidity away from Vast.ai. Severity: high
Industry-wide GPU price compression erodes Vast.ai's core lowest-price value proposition. Severity: high
Vast.ai remains bootstrapped with only $4M disclosed funding versus well-capitalized rivals. Severity: medium
No named enterprise customers found, unlike better-known peers, limiting revenue durability signal. Severity: medium
Brand confusion with the unrelated, much larger VAST Data ($30B valuation) could distort investor and media perception. Severity: low

Rivals, as read in July 2026

Rival	Direction	Evidence
RunPod	losing to	RunPod raised $100M at $1B valuation with >1M developers and ~$240M annualized revenue, June 2026, vs Vast.ai's single $4M seed
CoreWeave	contesting	Vast.ai undercuts CoreWeave's $6.16/hr H100 price with listings from $1.47/hr as of June 2026
Voltage Park	contesting	Voltage Park acquired competitor TensorDock in March 2025, consolidating neocloud GPU marketplace tier
AWS/Azure/GCP hyperscalers	gaining on	Vast.ai undercuts hyperscaler on-demand GPU prices by 3 to 8x as of June 2026, though hyperscalers cut H100 pricing ~44% in June 2025

Questions people ask

Is Vast.ai profitable in 2026?: No public profitability figures exist. Vast.ai says its revenue grew 13x and crossed seven figures per month for the first time as of March 2026 (self-reported, unaudited), but no profit or margin data has been disclosed.
Who is Vast.ai's biggest competitor?: RunPod is Vast.ai's closest direct rival, running an identical GPU marketplace model. RunPod raised $100M at a $1B valuation in June 2026 with over 1 million developers and about $240M annualized revenue, dwarfing Vast.ai's scale.
Could AI replace Vast.ai's marketplace business?: Unlikely directly. Vast.ai frames AI agents as a demand driver, having shipped an agent skill in May 2026 letting Claude and Codex CLI tools provision GPUs directly through Vast, positioning itself as infrastructure for agentic AI rather than a target for replacement.
Who owns Vast.ai?: Vast.ai is privately held, founded by CEO Jake Cannell and Christian Horne, incorporated in Delaware on June 28, 2016. Its only disclosed funding round is a $4 million seed in July 2024 led by DRW Venture Capital, as of June 2026.
How does Vast.ai's GPU pricing compare to competitors?: As of June 2026, Vast.ai lists H100 rentals from $1.47 to $2.27 per hour versus $6.16 per hour on CoreWeave, and RTX 4090s from $0.29 per hour, making it one of the cheapest GPU marketplaces tracked by gpucloudcost.com.
Is Vast.ai raising new funding to compete with RunPod?: No new institutional round has been publicly reported as of July 2026. Vast.ai remains largely bootstrapped with just a $4M seed from 2024, while rival RunPod raised $100M at a $1B valuation in June 2026.

Timeline

2026-07-14Ramp data ranks Vast.ai #2 in GPU Cloud category with 23% customer adoption share
2026-06-24RunPod raises $100M at $1B valuation, rejects $500M+ buyout offers
2026-06-19Crustdata reports Vast.ai headcount at 46 employees, up from 25 in Dec 2024
2026-05-12Vast.ai ships agent skill letting Claude and Codex CLI drive GPU provisioning
2026-03-03Vast.ai reports 13x revenue growth, crossing seven figures per month for first time
2025-09-17Getlatka estimates Vast.ai 2025 revenue at ~$2.2M ARR, $6.6M valuation
2025-06-05Vast.ai opens San Francisco office to pursue unannounced new product
2024-07-31Vast.ai closes $4M seed round led by DRW Venture Capital
2024-05-02Vast.ai becomes first GPU rental marketplace to offer AMD support
2018-09-30Vast.ai publicly launches its GPU rental marketplace

Revision history

21 July 2026

First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.

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