Seed · AI & Machine Learning · Munich, Germany · Founded 2023 · 20–30 employees
Pruna AI is a Munich-based AI optimization engine that compresses machine learning models using techniques such as pruning, quantization, distillation, and caching — making AI models up to 2–10x faster, cheaper, and more energy-efficient. Founded in 2023 by ML researchers from the Technical University of Munich with over 270 published papers between them, the company targets ML teams of all sizes that struggle with the computational and financial costs of running large AI models. Pruna has publicly released over 7,000 compressed models on Hugging Face, surpassing 1.3 million downloads, and has been accepted into NVIDIA's Inception Program. In November 2024, the company raised a $6.5 million seed round led by EQT Ventures, with participation from Daphni, Motier Ventures, and Kima Ventures, plus notable angels including Roxanne Varza, Hervé Nivon, and Olivier Pomel.