Lucend has raised $3.3 million to fund the US roll-out of an AI-powered platform that it says can boost data center cooling efficiency and cut electricity bills.

The vendor is using cash from its seed round to launch its Transparent AI platform in the US, and says it can help businesses “illuminate complex operational environments” and empower data center operators with “the intelligence they need to act with trust, accuracy, and confidence.”

The company’s platform “analyzes billions of data points daily and provides prescriptive recommendations that data center operators can review and choose whether or not to implement,” said Jasper de Vries, co-founder of Lucend.

He added: “Lucend’s human-in-the-loop approach removes risk by ensuring human oversight as operators develop trust in our recommendations that increases efficiency and reliability, and enables new approaches to maintenance and replacement decisions.”

The system is already in operation in markets outside the US, having been installed at data centers run by companies such as Digital Realty, Global Switch, and T5 in Europe and Asia, Lucend said.

This has enabled the company to collect data from different climates and designs, working with closed-loop systems, adiabatic cooling designs, cooling and electrical assets like chillers, IACs, UPSs, and generators, or data points like valve openings, fan speeds, temperature setpoints, and pressures.

Lucend said its existing global customers have achieved a 25 percent reduction in power use, a 30 percent reduction in water, and seen power use effectiveness improve.

“As AI’s demand for data centers grows, data center operators need to prioritize efficiency and uptime while also conserving resources like energy and water,” said René Gompel, co-founder of Lucend. “Lucend and our Transparent AI platform open a pathway to consistent, measurable efficiency improvements while increasing uptime, without new capex, and without disrupting existing operations, while saving some of our customers millions in annual operating cost."

Formerly known as Coolgradient, Lucend was founded in the Netherlands but is now based in the US, and has raised the seed funding in a round led by Remarkable Ventures Climate (RVC), with support from Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Fund, New Climate Ventures, Avesta, and Stepchange, as well as existing investor, 4impact capital.

“Lucend is a category-defining company led by a world-class team,” said Murat Aktihanoglu, managing partner at RVC. “The team’s early insight into this market, years before the AI boom, has positioned them well ahead of competitors, many of whom are just now entering the space."