In this episode of Cloud Frontier, Rob sits down with Saaya Pal, Partner at Jump Capital, exploring the evolving landscape of AI investments and enterprise adoption. As an early-stage investor focusing on FinTech and enterprise software, Saaya shares how enterprises are navigating AI implementation, with many organizations moving from initial hesitation to strategic adoption, particularly for internal use cases. The conversation delves into crucial infrastructure challenges, including data center constraints, multi-cloud environments, and the increasing importance of cost optimization.

You can find Rob Pankow (CEO & Co-founder of simplyblock and host of Cloud Frontier) on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertpankow

Cloud Frontier is brought to you by simplyblock. Simplyblock is an NVMe-first Kubernetes storage platform for IO-intensive workloads, including databases. Low latency, high IOPS, high throughput storage for the most demanding applications. With the benefits of thin provisioning, storage tiering, and volume pooling, your database workloads get better performance at lower cost without changes to existing cloud or data center infrastructure.

📋 Show notes:

Saaya's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saaya-pal-12ba82a3/

Saaya's Twitter/X: https://x.com/saayanath

JumpCapital's website: https://jumpcap.com/

Follow us on:

🐦 simplyblock Twitter/X: https://x.com/simplyblock_io

👨‍💻 simplyblock LinkedIn: / https://www.linkedin.com/company/simplyblock-io/

📹 simplyblock Youtube: / https://www.youtube.com/@simplyblock

Know more about us: 🌍 simplyblock Website: https://simplyblock.io/

Key features of simplyblock: ⭐ Smart local NVMe caching to eliminate read I/O latency and speed up database queries ⭐ Maximum IOPS and lowest latency ⭐ Benefits of thin provisioning, instant copy-on-write clone, compression, deduplication & encryption

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, Rob Pankow sits down with Ruslan Halilov, co-founder of BlueDot, to discuss the company's evolution from a recruitment agency to an innovative AI meeting assistant. The conversation explores BlueDot's journey in finding product-market fit, their approach to fundraising, and insights into effective go-to-market strategies. This episode offers valuable lessons for founders navigating the B2B SaaS landscape. You can find Rob Pankow (CEO & Co-founder of simplyblock and host of Cloud Frontier) on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertpankow 📔 Chapters: 01:04 - Guest and Company Introduction 07:55 - Choosing the right game to play 12:23 - How BlueDot grew their customers 18:57 - The next plan for BlueDot 20:49 - What your customers really need 23:11 - Fundraise or Bootstrap? 26:24 - Ruslan's go-to market strategies 31:07 - Getting your first customers 38:21 - How does Ruslan get his knowledge? 41:29 - What's exciting happening in Ruslan's space? 44:27 - Conclusion Cloud Frontier is brought to you by simplyblock. On Cloud Frontier, our Co-founder, Rob Pankow, engages with fellow founders to discuss their entrepreneurial paths, challenges in building software companies, and the innovations shaping cloud infrastructure. For more episodes, visit Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5tqKWgHgbtOQTF0ud7F8Bu ☁️ Cloud Frontier Report: Read our free quarterly newsletter packed with insights on the cloud infrastructure landscape: https://www.simplyblock.io/cloud-frontier-report 📋 Show notes: Guest links & episode links: Russ' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russkhalilov/ Russ' Twitter/X: https://x.com/rusras_ BlueDot website: https://www.bluedothq.com/ Follow us on: 🐦 simplyblock Twitter/X: https://x.com/simplyblock_io 👨‍💻 simplyblock LinkedIn: / simplyblock-io 📹 simplyblock Youtube: / @simplyblock Know more about us: 🌍 simplyblock Website: https://simplyblock.io/ Simplyblock is NVMe-based storage platform for IO-intensive workloads in Kubernetes, including databases and analytics solutions. Key features of simplyblock: ⭐ Smart local NVMe caching to eliminate read I/O latency and speed up database queries ⭐ Intelligent data tiering between high-speed NVMe and other storage tiers ⭐ Maximum IOPS and lowest latency on read ⭐ Benefits of thin provisioning, instant copy-on-write clone, compression, deduplication & encryption

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, we chat with Carmen Li, founder of Silicon Data. Carmen shares her journey from high-frequency trading to launching a platform that brings financial infrastructure and transparency to compute markets. She discusses Silicon Data's first products—SiliconNavigator for GPU price insights and SiliconCarbon for carbon footprint tracking—and how they address key challenges in the compute ecosystem. Carmen also reflects on transitioning to entrepreneurship, the importance of building agile teams, and encouraging more women to pursue startup ambitions.

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, Rob and Carmen discuss:

• Carmen’s transition from managing Bloomberg’s global data integrations to becoming a first-time startup founder
• Insights on creating tools like SiliconNavigator for GPU price tracking and SiliconCarbon for carbon footprint monitoring
• Challenges in data normalization, benchmarking, and building products for the compute ecosystem
• Emerging trends in compute markets, including GPU commoditization, chip designs, and edge computing opportunities

Interested to learn more about the cloud economy? Head to Spotify for more episodes, read our newsletter on our Website, and follow us on LinkedIn. You can also check out the detailed show notes on our YouTube channel.

You can find our host Rob Pankow on LinkedIn at /robertpankow and Carmen Li on LinkedIn at /carmenrli. Visit Silicon Data's website to know more: https://www.silicondata.com/

About Simplyblock:

Simplyblock is an intelligent database storage orchestrator for IO-intensive workloads in Kubernetes, including databases and analytics solutions. It uses smart NVMe caching to speed up read I/O latency and queries. A single system connects local NVMe disks, GP3 volumes, and S3, making it easier to handle storage capacity and performance. With the benefits of thin provisioning, storage tiering, and volume pooling, your database workloads get better performance at lower cost without changes to existing AWS infrastructure.

👉 Get started with Simplyblock: https://www.simplyblock.io/buy-now
🏪 Simplyblock AWS Marketplace: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=seller-fzdtuccq3edzm

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, we chat with Burak Karakan, co-founder of Bruin. Burak shares his journey from working at HelloFresh to launching Bruin, a platform that unifies data ingestion, transformation, quality, and governance. He explains how they identified an opportunity in the chaos of data infrastructure, leading to Bruin's creation. Burak also discusses his experience transitioning from corporate comfort to startup challenges, fundraising lessons, and the importance of selecting the right investors. We also touch on the exciting developments in open-source data storage formats, which are enabling greater data freedom.

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, Rob and Burak discuss:

• The creation of Bruin, an end-to-end data platform for simplifying data infrastructure management
• Burak’s journey from HelloFresh to becoming a full-time startup founder
• Lessons from fundraising, including how to choose the right investors and build lasting partnerships
• Challenges with the modern data stack and how Bruin addresses them
• The potential impact of open-source data storage formats, like Apache Iceberg, on the data landscape

Interested to learn more about the cloud economy? Head to Spotify for more episodes, read our newsletter on our Website, and follow us on LinkedIn. You can also check out the detailed show notes on our YouTube channel.

You can find our host Rob Pankow on LinkedIn at /robertpankow and Burak Karakan on LinkedIn at /burakkarakan. Visit Bruin's website to know more: https://getbruin.com/.

About Simplyblock:

Simplyblock is an intelligent database storage orchestrator for IO-intensive workloads in Kubernetes, including databases and analytics solutions. It uses smart NVMe caching to speed up read I/O latency and queries. A single system connects local NVMe disks, GP3 volumes, and S3, making it easier to handle storage capacity and performance. With the benefits of thin provisioning, storage tiering, and volume pooling, your database workloads get better performance at lower cost without changes to existing AWS infrastructure.

👉 Get started with Simplyblock: https://www.simplyblock.io/buy-now
🏪 Simplyblock AWS Marketplace: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=seller-fzdtuccq3edzm

In this episode of Cloud Frontier podcast, our host Rob Pankow sits down with Elias Schneider, the founder of Codesphere. Elias shares his journey from working at Google and SAP to launching Codesphere, a platform designed to streamline the entire development lifecycle in the cloud. Elias explains how the company initially struggled to find product-market fit, eventually realizing that their solution was most valuable to large enterprises, particularly those managing complex development processes and diverse infrastructure environments. We also discuss the evolving landscape of cloud infrastructure, the growing interest in hybrid and on-prem solutions, and Elias’s thoughts on the future of cloud, including new chip architectures like RISC-V.

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, Rob and Elias discuss:

• The creation of Codesphere, a platform to streamline cloud development and infrastructure management
• Overcoming challenges to find product-market fit and securing large enterprise clients
• The future of cloud infrastructure, including hybrid cloud and on-prem solutions
• Exciting advancements in chip architecture with RISC-V and its potential impact on computing

Interested to learn more about the cloud economy? Head to Spotify for more episodes, read our newsletter on our Website, and follow us on LinkedIn. You can also check out the detailed show notes on our YouTube channel.

You can our host Robert Pankow on LinkedIn at /robertpankow and Elias Schneider on LinkedIn at /elias-dev. Visit Codesphere's website to know more: https://codesphere.com/

About Simplyblock:

Simplyblock is an intelligent database storage orchestrator for IO-intensive workloads in Kubernetes, including databases and analytics solutions. It uses smart NVMe caching to speed up read I/O latency and queries. A single system connects local NVMe disks, GP3 volumes, and S3 making it easier to handle storage capacity and performance. With the benefits of thin provisioning, storage tiering, and volume pooling, your database workloads get better performance at lower cost without changes to existing AWS infrastructure.

👉 Get started with Simplyblock: https://www.simplyblock.io/buy-now

🏪 Simplyblock AWS Marketplace: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=seller-fzdtuccq3edzm

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, our host Rob Pankow is joined by Adam Szymański, CTO and co-founder of Oxla, a fast and efficient distributed database. Adam shares his journey from Google to founding Oxla and how it's helping IoT and cybersecurity companies handle massive data more quickly and cost-effectively. He also touches on the challenges of competing with giants like Snowflake and Databricks, and how Oxla is addressing enterprise needs

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, Rob and Adam discuss:

• The creation of Oxla, a distributed database for IoT and cybersecurity
• Building trust and securing enterprise customers
• Competing with Snowflake and Databricks on performance and cost
• The role of data management in industries like energy and autonomous vehicles

Interested to learn more about the cloud economy? Head to Spotify for more episodes, read our newsletter on our ⁠Website⁠, and follow us on ⁠Linkedin⁠. You can also check out the detailed show notes on our Youtube channel.

You can our host Rob Pankow on Linkedin at /robertpankow and Adam Szymański on LinkedIn at /adam-szymański. Vist Oxla's website to know more: https://www.oxla.com/

About simplyblock:

Simplyblock is an intelligent database storage orchestrator for IO-intensive workloads in Kubernetes, including databases and analytics solutions. It uses smart NVMe caching to speed up read I/O latency and queries. A single system connects local NVMe disks, GP3 volumes, and S3 making it easier to handle storage capacity and performance. With the benefits of thin provisioning, storage tiering, and volume pooling, your database workloads get better performance at lower cost without changes to existing AWS infrastructure.

👉 Get started with simplyblock: https://www.simplyblock.io/buy-now
🏪 simplyblock AWS Marketplace: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=seller-fzdtuccq3edzm

Marc Austin is the CEO and co-founder of Hedgehog. Hedgehog is an open-source software company dedicated to giving Cloud Native application owners the ability to deploy workloads on edge-compute and distributed cloud infrastructure.

Check out Hedgehog at: http://hedgehog.cloud and hit "download" button to try the product.

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, Rob and Marc discuss:

• Challenges faced by open-source companies in monetization and scaling

• The role of AI cloud networks and distributed cloud infrastructure

• Building partnerships with design partners and cloud builders

• The evolving landscape of AI infrastructure and its networking needs

Interested to learn more about the cloud economy? Head to Spotify for more episodes, read our newsletter on our ⁠Website⁠, and follow us on ⁠Linkedin⁠. You can also check out the detailed show notes on Youtube (needs to be linked once you upload)

You can find Robert Pankow on Linkedin at /robertpankow and Marc Austin on X at @marcraustin and Linkedin: /austinmarc.

About simplyblock:

Simplyblock is an intelligent database storage orchestrator for IO-intensive workloads in Kubernetes, including databases and analytics solutions. It uses smart NVMe caching to speed up read I/O latency and queries. A single system connects local NVMe disks, GP3 volumes, and S3 making it easier to handle storage capacity and performance. With the benefits of thin provisioning, storage tiering, and volume pooling, your database workloads get better performance at lower cost without changes to existing AWS infrastructure.

👉 Get started with simplyblock: https://www.simplyblock.io/buy-now
🏪 simplyblock AWS Marketplace: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/seller-profile?id=seller-fzdtuccq3edzm

Mahmoud Mabrouk is the cofounder and CEO of Agenta.ai, a company building an open-source LLM Development Platform to make LLMs more reliable.

In this episode of Cloud Frontier, Rob and Mahmoud discuss:

• Building reliable AI applications with LLMs
• Challenges and opportunities in AI product development
• The journey from academia to launching a startup
• Fundraising strategies for AI-focused startups
• The future of AI: democratization and autonomous agents

Interested to learn more about the cloud economy? Head to Spotify for more episodes, read our newsletter on our Website, and follow us on LinkedIn. You can also check out the detailed show notes on YouTube.

You can find Robert Pankow on LinkedIn at /in/robertpankow and Mahmoud Mabrouk on X at @mmabrouk and LinkedIn at /mmabrouk2.

About Simplyblock:

Simplyblock is an intelligent database storage orchestrator for IO-intensive workloads in Kubernetes, including databases and analytics solutions. It uses smart NVMe caching to speed up read I/O latency and queries. A single system connects local NVMe disks, GP3 volumes, and S3, making it easier to handle storage capacity and performance. With the benefits of thin provisioning, storage tiering, and volume pooling, your database workloads get better performance at lower cost without changes to existing AWS infrastructure.

👉 Get started with Simplyblock: https://www.simplyblock.io/buy-now

🏪 Simplyblock AWS Marketplace: https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/se...