Startup profile for PiCloud: latest funding, latest known valuation, total disclosed funding, investors, status, sources, and why the company is interesting. Part of the Venture Capital Tracker startup directory.
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PiCloud funding, valuation and investors

Python PaaS for parallel cloud computing — acqui-hired by Dropbox in 2013.

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Funding, valuation & investors

Answer-first snapshot

Latest funding

Seed

$1.4M · 2010

Latest known valuation

Not publicly disclosed

Total disclosed equity funding

$1.4M

Excludes debt, grants, acquisitions, secondaries, and IPO proceeds.

Current status

acquired

acquired · Sunnyvale, CA

Investors in latest funding

Other: Greylock Partners , Kleiner Perkins , Andreessen Horowitz

Sources: latest funding Last verified: 2026-07-25

Overview

PiCloud was a Sunnyvale-based platform-as-a-service that let developers run parallel Python and scientific computing jobs in the cloud without managing clusters. Co-founded by UC Berkeley graduates Ken Elkabany (CEO) and Aaron Staley (CTO) around 2009, the company raised a $1.4M seed in 2010 from Greylock Partners, Kleiner Perkins, and Andreessen Horowitz. PiCloud ran on AWS and targeted researchers and batch workloads with a Python-native API — an early serverless pattern before that term existed. In November 2013 Dropbox acqui-hired the team for infrastructure talent; the consumer service shut down February 2014 and continued as an open-source project via spinout Multyvac.

Why PiCloud is interesting

Ken Elkabany and Aaron Staley built one of the first serverless Python platforms years before AWS Lambda — Greylock, Kleiner, and a16z backed the Berkeley team, but Docker's 2013 launch ended the product arc before Dropbox acqui-hired the engineers.

Product & use cases

Python-native PaaS for parallel cloud computing — developers submitted Python functions and PiCloud scheduled them across AWS-backed workers without provisioning servers.

  • Scientific Python batch jobs at scale
  • Parallel cloud compute for researchers
  • Python PaaS without cluster management

Key facts

  • Founded (~2009): Ken Elkabany and Aaron Staley, UC Berkeley graduates (GigaOM / Tracxn)
  • Seed (2010): $1.4M from Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, a16z (The Next Web)
  • Exit (Nov 2013): Dropbox acqui-hired team; service sunset Feb 2014 (PiCloud blog / TNW)
  • Open-source continuation via Multyvac after shutdown (The Next Web)

Funding history (newest first)

Seed

2010 $1.4M

Source: https://thenextweb.com/news/picloud-lets-you-run-your-python-code-in-the-cloud-raises-1-4m-from-andreessen-horowitz-greylock-and-kleiner-perkins

Investors in our directory

Funds linked from PiCloud's profile — open a fund page for stage focus and related deal articles.

Andreessen Horowitz Greylock Kleiner Perkins

Competitive landscape

Edge: Python-first API and early serverless execution model predated AWS Lambda and mainstream container orchestration — lower ops burden for scientific Python teams than raw EC2.

PiCloud competed in the early 2010s PaaS wave alongside Heroku but focused on parallel scientific Python rather than web dynos. CEO Ken Elkabany later recounted that Docker's 2013 launch — not AWS Lambda — signaled the end: PiCloud pivoted container-first but could not catch traction before the Dropbox acqui-hire. The team's serverless instincts proved prescient; today's Modal and Lambda address the same job-to-be-done with better timing and ecosystem maturity.

  • Heroku direct

    PaaS peer on AWS; PiCloud differentiated on parallel Python batch vs general web apps.

  • AWS Batch incumbent

    General cloud batch compute; arrived later and required more infra wiring than PiCloud's Python API.

  • Modal direct

    Modern Python cloud compute inheriting the same developer-experience thesis PiCloud pioneered.

Notable stories

  • PiCloud blog cited the market as 'not ready for venture-backed growth' when announcing the Dropbox acqui-hire — the team joined to accelerate developer access to Dropbox's data corpus (The Next Web, Nov 2013).
  • Founder Ken Elkabany told Thundergolfer that Docker's 2013 release was immediately recognized as 'the beginning of the end' for PiCloud's Python-only runtime, prompting a container pivot that did not save the standalone product.

Industries

Developer Tools Infrastructure & Cloud

Related funding articles

Venture Capital Tracker pieces that cover PiCloud's financing or category context.

FAQs about PiCloud

Practical answers founders, operators, and investors typically search for.

Python cloud parallel computing PaaS for scientific and batch workloads without managing clusters.
Dropbox acqui-hired the team in November 2013; the consumer service shut down February 2014.
Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, and a16z in a $1.4M seed. See /fund/andreessen-horowitz, /fund/greylock-partners, and /fund/kleiner-perkins.
No — the team joined Dropbox and the hosted service ended; code continued open-source via Multyvac.
PiCloud was Python-specific PaaS years before Lambda; both abstract server management for developers.
UC Berkeley graduates Ken Elkabany (CEO) and Aaron Staley (CTO).
Infrastructure engineering talent and parallel-compute expertise, not the product line itself.
$1.4M seed in 2010 — no later equity rounds publicly disclosed before the acqui-hire.
Historians cite it as among the earliest serverless-style Python platforms, predating AWS Lambda by several years.
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