How to Invest in Lambda

By Frank Downing, Jozef Soja

Director of Research, Next Generation Internet

As Director of Research, Frank guides the research of the Next Generation Internet team. Frank's research focuses on cloud computing and cryptoassets.

Research Analyst

Jozef Soja joined ARK in January 2023. As an Analyst, he focuses on artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and software-as-a-service in support of ARK’s Next Generation Internet strategy.

Self-Directed Investors typically have limited access to private companies like Lambda Labs before they go public. ARK Invest solves that problem. All US investors can download the SoFi or Titan app and, with as little as $500, invest in a portfolio of private and public companies through the ARK Venture Fund.

Every wave of disruptive innovation eventually rests on a layer of infrastructure that captures a durable share of the value it enables. Artificial intelligence is no exception. As AI systems automate more knowledge work, ARK's research suggests that much of the resulting automation-software spending will accrue to the layers that host and scale those systems: platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS).

As we detailed in our second-quarter 2025 update, we believe the greatest beneficiaries will be the companies that provide flexible, accelerated compute and the platforms that let enterprises deploy and customize AI applications. We believe Lambda sits at the center of that opportunity. It is one of the leading neoclouds supplying graphics processing unit (GPU) infrastructure for AI training and inference.

Advances in model architecture, falling compute costs, and surging demand for both training and inference have made accelerated compute the scarcest input in the AI economy. Independent analysts size neocloud GPU-as-a-service (GPUaaS) revenue at roughly $42 billion in 2025,¹ a market that barely existed a few years ago.

As open-source models proliferate, we believe demand for neutral, high-performance compute will broaden well beyond the hyperscalers.² Enterprises want to train, fine-tune, and serve models without surrendering their data or their roadmap to a single incumbent platform. That preference favors independent providers built specifically for accelerated workloads.

Lambda translates that platform shift into durable economics. The company maximizes the useful life of its GPUs, dedicating its newest generation to training and optimizing older generations for inference. The approach stretches the return on each accelerator across its full lifecycle rather than a single hardware cycle.

Lambda is also moving up the stack. Beyond raw infrastructure, it is expanding into PaaS, application programming interfaces (APIs), and chat interfaces that give enterprises and consumers access to open-source models. Each layer deepens customer relationships and, in our view, compounds the value of the underlying compute.

Lambda's execution thus far supports our conviction. In November 2025, the company signed a multibillion-dollar, multi-year agreement with Microsoft covering tens of thousands of NVIDIA GPUs, now servicing more than 200,000 developers.³ NVIDIA agreed to lease back ~18,000 GPUs from Lambda for ~$1.5 billion over four years, making the chipmaker Lambda's largest customer.⁴ Lambda's annualized revenue reached ~$760 million at year-end 2025, up ~79% year-over-year.  That same month, the company raised over $1.5 billion in a Series E round led by TWG Global and USIT.⁶

More than commercial wins, those relationships are validation from the most demanding buyers of compute. NVIDIA's Exemplar Cloud designation and seven-time Partner of the Year recognition signal engineering credibility that is difficult to replicate. Tooling like 1-Click Clusters and the Lambda Stack lowers the friction that comes with standing up large-scale training, and a historical pricing advantage on H100 capacity relative to CoreWeave has helped Lambda win developer mindshare. As noted in ARK’s first-quarter 2026 update, the build-out toward owned data-center capacity should further improve unit economics over the long term.

Importantly, Lambda is not yet profitable and carries GPU-backed debt secured against rapidly depreciating assets, it competes with larger neoclouds like CoreWeave and with the hyperscalers, and its revenue remains concentrated among a few anchor customers. We weigh those risks in probabilistic terms instead of treating any single outcome as assured.

That said, our research suggests that Lambda's disciplined asset strategy, deepening partnerships, and expansion up the stack position it to benefit from the exponential adoption of AI compute and the long-term growth it should drive. We are proud to hold exposure to this platform shift through the ARK Venture Fund.

Important Information

 We offer our view of Lambda because it is part of the total ARK Venture Fund portfolio. To see the most updated portfolio, please visit here. Holdings subject to change. Not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any specific security.

BEFORE INVESTING YOU SHOULD CAREFULLY CONSIDER THE FUND'S INVESTMENT OBJECTIVES, RISKS, CHARGES AND EXPENSES. THIS AND OTHER INFORMATION IS IN THE PROSPECTUS, A COPY OF WHICH MAY BE OBTAINED HERE. PLEASE READ THE PROSPECTUS CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU INVEST.

There is no assurance that the Fund will meet its investment objective. The value of your investment in the Fund, as well as the amount of return you receive on your investment in the Fund, may fluctuate significantly. You may lose part or all of your investment in the Fund or your investment may not perform as well as other similar investments. Therefore, you should consider carefully the risks at the bottom of this page before investing in the Fund.

ARK Investment Management LLC is the investment adviser to the ARK Venture Fund.

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