AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed • Hacker News Board

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#51

Post by jdw64 » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

pqtyw wrote: post #49

jdw64 wrote: post #16

VCs think, 'Apps are risky, infrastructure is safe,' so they invested in AI infra. "infra is safe" Hmm, but that wasn't a good idea. because if an open source infrastructure project like TensorZero gets shut down this quickly, won't they start to realize that those investment theories are also risky? The difficult thing about AI infrastructure is that, unlike other industries, it will not become fragmented. It will l…

Infra is perhaps somewhat safe but realistically it's a really low margin capital intense business long-term unless you can lock-in customers with hundreds of services like AWS. So not a lot of space for a huge ROI. > are all the rage these days Are they? Overall it seems kind of tame compared to 2020-21 since VCs are somewhat risk average outside of a few outliers. Funding looks much more concentrated these days.

You're right. Looking at recent indicators, there are more stable investments than I thought. But please understand that, as a human, I haven't achieved ROI in terms of marriage, relationships, a stable job, etc., so my perspective might be mixed with a bit of envy

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#52

Post by croes » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #17

This is the claim in the repo readme that presumably unlocked the VC investment: “TensorZero is used by companies ranging from frontier AI startups to the Fortune 10 and fuels ~1% of global LLM API spend today.” One percent seems like a lot. Anyone on HN use this?

Rounded to the nearest percent >0

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#53

Post by jnovek » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

kmac_ wrote: post #36

About one year ago, I created an LLM gateway with metrics, provider fallback and switching, tools support, injecting, etc. etc., and unique features like acting as an MCP tools client and server, all streamed, with low latency. It was a simple project in terms of technical complexity. I didn't publish it as I counted several similar projects in the field. Putting $7.3M into such a project would make sense only in the…

The calculus in “buy or build” has shifted for me over the last six months especially. If I can make an agent build it, I get the version that’s tailored for me.

> It was a simple project in terms of technical complexity.

That’s the thing, though. The version I build for myself sheds all the features that get in my way. I don’t share them either because they’re only useful for me.

Perhaps in the future big tech projects will be delivered with a common “core” and the expectation that agents fill in the use-specific stuff.

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#54

Post by lostmsu » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

croes wrote: post #52

pavlov wrote: post #17

This is the claim in the repo readme that presumably unlocked the VC investment: “TensorZero is used by companies ranging from frontier AI startups to the Fortune 10 and fuels ~1% of global LLM API spend today.” One percent seems like a lot. Anyone on HN use this?

Rounded to the nearest percent >0

ceil(market_share)

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#55

Post by armchairhacker » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

jnovek wrote: post #44

hoppp wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Were the thousands of commits and hundreds of feature branches over the last 9 months just to keep up appearances, then? Were the 850 people who forked it in on the scheme, too?

Did Claude make the commits and branches?

(Honestly I don’t think so here, but I predict that will happen eventually)

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#56

Post by skeledrew » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #18

realsarm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can call it a bait but where is VCs due diligence for this. Most VCs where out there defending their infra layers investment. Just look at YC batches and see the inflated number of infra startups.

"Failure" is the expected median though. You can't due-diligence your way out of "startup ran out of runway"! The discussion here isn't about funding, it's that there's a presumptively useful community tool which got abandoned because its owners took their toys and went home when the money ran out (instead of making a sincere effort at transitioning to community governance). That's on the IP owners being selfish jerk…

At least the repo is still available. Anyone can fork and carry on, create a community, etc.

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#57

Post by spmurrayzzz » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #17

This is the claim in the repo readme that presumably unlocked the VC investment: “TensorZero is used by companies ranging from frontier AI startups to the Fortune 10 and fuels ~1% of global LLM API spend today.” One percent seems like a lot. Anyone on HN use this?

I used it, but only briefly to evaluate it. It had some overlap with a tool I built myself, was curious if any of the extra features would be useful.

Ultimately I found the data model and UI to be both cumbersome and unintuitive. Langfuse ended up being the observability tool I went with instead over the one I built (and still use today).

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#58

Post by jazzyjackson » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

Noaidi wrote: post #42

realsarm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can call it a bait but where is VCs due diligence for this. Most VCs where out there defending their infra layers investment. Just look at YC batches and see the inflated number of infra startups.

A great way to launder money then?

Which step of “VC firm with millions to invest” and “fresh grads blow millions on AWS bills, sushi delivery and ketamine” is dirty money being washed?

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#59

Post by gwerbin » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:44 PM UTC

jnovek wrote: post #38

ajross wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Failure" is the expected median though. You can't due-diligence your way out of "startup ran out of runway"! The discussion here isn't about funding, it's that there's a presumptively useful community tool which got abandoned because its owners took their toys and went home when the money ran out (instead of making a sincere effort at transitioning to community governance). That's on the IP owners being selfish jerk…

While most startups fail eventually, failure in less than a year with over 7 million dollars is not the expected median. It’s the exact sort of thing that due diligence is supposed to prevent. Also the whole project is open source. If you want, you could take it over.

Are there cases when VC investors actually went after founders for fraud or embezzlement or misrepresenting the business or something like that?

Re: AI OSS tool repo goes archived over night after raising $7.3M Seed

#60

Post by indigodaddy » Sat, Jun 13, 2026, 2:46 PM UTC

Just use Plexus [1]. The maintainer is not trying to be a hero or raise seed dollars or even really trying to promote it. He's just making an excellent, useful product. (Unaffiliated, just a happy user). It's not a full-on "LLMOps" platform (whatever that is), it's just a proxy that works very well and has some nice features.

[1] https://github.com/mcowger/plexus