Render (cloud platform)

Anurag Goel joined Stripe in 2011 as its fifth engineer, when the company had four full-time engineers, one of whom worked exclusively on managing its AWS infrastructure. By the time he left in 2016, Stripe’s engineering organization had grown to 120, with 25 people on the team managing AWS.⁠[1][2]

Goel recalled that after leaving Stripe he saw multiple startups, including his own, face the same choice between limited legacy platforms and heavy investment in managing public-cloud infrastructure, and decided to build Render.⁠[2]

Goel wrote that Render began as a passion project in late 2017; in a 2025 funding announcement he wrote that he started Render in 2019. Render launched publicly at TechCrunch DisruptTechCrunch DisruptTechCrunch Disrupt is a technology and startup conference organized by TechCrunch, combining interviews, product demonstrations, startup competitions and industry networking for founders and investors.Open the full entry in 2019.⁠[1][2][3]

In September 2021 Goel published “Why Render,” arguing that companies were each rebuilding Kubernetes-based internal platforms and employing large DevOps teams, and that Render was building “the modern PaaS every team and company needs.” The post said developers and businesses had created more than 300,000 services on Render, which supported static sites, cron jobs, managed PostgreSQL databases, background workers, private services and Docker containers.⁠[1]

On November 22, 2021, Render announced a $20 million Series A led by Addition, with existing investors General CatalystGeneral CatalystGeneral Catalyst (GC) is an investment firm founded in 2000 and headquartered in San Francisco, United States, created by Joel Cutler, David Fialkow and Bill Fitzgerald, that backs companies from the seed stage through growth.Open the full entry and the South Park Commons Fund participating, bringing total funding to $27 million; it also introduced free instance types for web services and PostgreSQL databases.⁠[4]

On June 20, 2023, Render announced a $50 million Series B led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with existing investors Addition, General Catalyst and the South Park Commons Fund participating. The company said websites and workloads on Render served more than one billion visits a month and that well over half a million developers and teams were on the platform.⁠[3]

On January 21, 2025, Render announced an $80 million Series C led by Georgian, with participation from 01A, avra and existing investors Addition, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst and the South Park Commons Fund, bringing total funding to $157 million; it also said it had surpassed two million developers, with more than 100,000 signing up each month.⁠[2]

The company said the funding would go to capabilities such as object storage, observability, new regions and security and compliance, and to expanded investment in AI infrastructure, including letting customers safely execute AI-written code.⁠[2]

On February 17, 2026, Render announced a $100 million extension of its Series C at a $1.5 billion valuation, again led by Georgian, with Addition, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst and 01A among the participants, bringing total funding to $258 million. The company said it had more than 4.5 million developers, with more than 250,000 joining each month.⁠[5][6]

In the announcement Goel set the company’s next goal as building the cloud runtime for AI applications and agents, writing: “AI agents are the opposite: they are long-running, stateful, and distributed.” The company planned to add Workflows for durable execution, native object storage, managed sandboxes, a shared filesystem, an AI gateway and unified observability.⁠[5]

Maor Shlomo, founder of AI coding platform Base44, said in a quote in the announcement that he had invested in Render in this round.⁠[5]

As of November 2026, Render’s website listed its leadership as founder and CEO Anurag Goel, VP of Engineering Michael Greer, VP of Marketing Eli Staykova, VP of Finance & Operations Shuting Zhang, VP of Revenue Sam Taylor and VP of People Megan Granat; the company is headquartered in San Francisco with remote team members around the world.⁠[7]

At the same time, Render’s newsroom page listed 200 million active services on the platform and more than seven million builders using Render; its customers include thousands of organizations such as Twilio, Shopify and Tripadvisor.⁠[8][6]

Render: Official website: https://render.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

X: Public account: https://x.com/render (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/renderco/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://www.youtube.com/@render-inc (opens in a new window).⁠[7]