When developers discover a tool that removes complexity, adoption can happen quickly. That has been the story of Ollama, the open source AI platform that has become one of the most widely used tools for running open-weight AI models locally. Now, the company is backing that momentum with fresh funding as demand for open AI infrastructure continues to grow.
Ollama has announced a $65 million Series B funding round led by Theory Ventures, bringing its total funding to $88 million. The latest investment follows a $15 million Series A led by Benchmark, reinforcing investor confidence in the growing market for open-source AI development tools.
Helping Developers Run AI Models Locally
Founded in 2023 by Jeff Morgan and Michael Chiang, Ollama simplifies the process of running open-weight AI models on local machines. Instead of requiring complex configurations, developers can install and launch models within minutes.
The founders previously helped build Docker Desktop after their startup, Kitematic, was acquired by Docker. That experience shaped Ollama’s mission of making AI development as accessible as containerized software development.
Today, the platform supports both local deployment and cloud-hosted AI models through subscription plans, allowing developers to choose between running models on their own hardware or accessing larger models through Ollama’s cloud infrastructure.
Nearly Nine Million Developers Using Ollama
According to the company, Ollama is now used by more than 8.9 million developers every month and has been adopted by organizations across 85% of the Fortune 500.
Its popularity within the developer community is also reflected on GitHub, where the project has accumulated approximately 176,000 stars and nearly 17,000 forks, making it one of the most recognized open-source AI developer tools available today.
Despite its scale, Ollama has achieved this growth with a team of only 14 employees.
Open Models Continue to Gain Enterprise Momentum
The rise of capable open-weight AI models has significantly expanded Ollama’s opportunity.
As enterprises look to manage AI infrastructure costs, many are increasingly combining open models with proprietary systems instead of relying exclusively on closed AI platforms. This hybrid approach allows organizations to optimize performance while reducing inference expenses for everyday workloads.
Jeff Morgan noted that improvements in open models over the past year have enabled them to perform increasingly sophisticated agentic tasks, including software development and coding assistance.
Benchmark partner Peter Fenton, who led Ollama’s earlier funding round, believes open and proprietary AI models will continue to coexist. Rather than replacing one another, he expects enterprises to use each where they deliver the greatest value.
Building a Business Around Open Source
Ollama’s growth also reflects a broader trend across the AI industry, where successful open-source projects are evolving into venture-backed companies.
Alongside projects such as vLLM, SGLang, and OpenClaw, Ollama represents a new generation of developer-first AI infrastructure companies attracting strong investor interest.
While some community members questioned the company’s expansion into cloud services, Ollama maintains that its commercial offerings complement rather than replace its free desktop product. The local open-source version remains freely available, while cloud services provide access to larger models that cannot easily run on personal hardware.
With fresh capital, a rapidly growing developer community, and increasing enterprise adoption of open-weight models, Ollama is positioning itself as a key platform in the evolving AI development ecosystem.