MilkStraw AI

About MilkStraw AI

MilkStraw AI is a developer of a cloud cost management platform that utilizes artificial intelligence to automate the optimization of cloud infrastructure expenses, primarily for businesses using Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company was founded in 2023 by Jawad Shreim (CEO), Anas Abdullah (CTO), and Ibraheem Tuffaha (CAIO). Shreim's background at a hedge fund, where he observed the unpredictable and substantial costs associated with training AI models, inspired the venture. He partnered with cloud expert Abdullah to tackle the problem from a billing perspective rather than a purely engineering-heavy one.

The company's core service provides customers with the pricing benefits of long-term cloud commitments, such as Reserved Instances, while maintaining the flexibility of on-demand payment models. MilkStraw AI's platform analyzes cloud usage patterns to identify inefficiencies and automatically implements cost-saving measures without requiring changes to the client's existing infrastructure. This is achieved by creating a large pool of customer commitments and managing them like a portfolio, offloading and transferring contracts between users based on their real-time needs, a process informed by predictive AI models. The platform optimizes commitment coverage for a range of AWS services, including Amazon EC2, RDS, Aurora, DocumentDB, ElastiCache, Redshift, and others.

MilkStraw AI operates on a performance-based business model, taking a percentage of the savings it generates for its clients. It also offers a subscription-based model with a free tier and a Pro plan. The company serves a clientele of over 100 startups, including notable names like Thndr, Ziina, and Maqsam, and reports zero customer churn since its inception. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, with a significant presence in the UAE, the firm targets small to medium-sized enterprises and large corporations. The company has raised a total of $2.6 million over two funding rounds. A pre-seed round in January 2025 raised $600,000, led by Flat6Labs, with participation from Angel Spark and Beyond Capital. This was followed by a $2 million seed round in January 2026, led by VentureSouq, with Ibtikar Fund and M Capital participating. The capital is being used to accelerate product development, including new features like "The Feed" for real-time activity streaming, "Right Sizing" for flagging inefficient resources, and an AI conversational layer for infrastructure management.