Intel shuts down Granulate less than three years after $650M acquisition
Intel shuts down Granulate less than three years after $650M acquisition
Intel is closing the Israeli startup it acquired in 2022, laying off its entire workforce of over 100 employees amid sweeping global cutbacks.
Intel is shutting down Granulate and laying off its entire workforce of over 100 employees. The cutbacks are part of broader layoffs taking place at Intel Israel this week.
Intel acquired Granulate for $650 million in March 2022. In recent months, Intel attempted to sell Granulate’s operations but ultimately failed to find a buyer.
Intel confirmed the closure, stating: "As part of Intel's transformation process, we continue to actively review each part of our product portfolio to ensure alignment with our strategic goals and core business. After extensive consideration, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue the Intel Tiber App-Level Optimization product line. We are committed to ensuring a smooth transition for our customers and will continue to provide support until the first quarter of 2025."
Founded in 2018 by Asaf Ezra (CEO) and Tal Saiag (CTO), Granulate had raised a total of $45 million before its acquisition by Intel.
Granulate developed real-time, continuous optimization software to help cloud and data center customers maximize compute workload performance and reduce infrastructure and cloud costs.
“At Intel, Granulate will be able to deliver autonomous optimization capabilities to even more customers globally and rapidly expand its offering with the help of Intel’s 19,000 software engineers,” CEO Asaf Ezra said at the time of the acquisition.
Granulate’s autonomous optimization service reduces CPU utilization and application latency by learning a customer’s application and deploying a customized set of optimizations at runtime. This enables deployment on smaller compute clusters and instance types, improving application performance while lowering cloud and data center costs.
Intel and Granulate’s relationship began in late 2019 when Granulate was part of the first graduating class of Intel Ignite, Intel's startup accelerator program, which is also being shut down as part of the cutbacks.
The first phase of cutbacks was announced in August, when Intel revealed a $10 billion cost-cutting plan that included laying off 15,000 employees—15% of its workforce—and implementing targeted measures like canceling leasing programs and reducing employee benefits. The second phase followed last month, with the announcement that Intel’s foundry division—the business of manufacturing chips for other companies—will become an independent subsidiary with its own board of directors.
