Emerald AI, a Washington, D.C.-based company developing software to help AI data centres adjust their electricity use during periods of grid strain, has closed a Series A funding round worth $150 million. The oversubscribed round values the startup at $1.05 billion, bringing its total capital raised to over $220 million since exiting stealth less than a year ago.

Energize Capital and DCVC jointly led the investment, alongside a roster of major financial and strategic backers. The funding syndicate includes 12 Fortune Global 500 companies, all of which now sit on the company's Strategic Advisory Board. Additional investors span Nvidia, Samsung Ventures, Siemens, Aramco Ventures, RWE, JERA Ventures, ADVentures, Sabanci Climate Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, Lowercarbon Capital, Marunouchi Innovation Partners, Emerson Collective, the Olayan Group, the Temerty Group, John Doerr, Tom Steyer, Earthshot Ventures, Collective Global, and General Catalyst's scout fund.

The company's core technology, Emerald Conductor, connects data centres to utilities and grid operators, automatically reducing or shifting power consumption from AI clusters when the grid faces stress while maintaining promised performance levels. A field test published in Nature Energy demonstrated that the software cut power use by 25% over three hours in a commercial cluster running 256 GPUs during peak grid strain in Phoenix, without affecting performance guarantees.

We founded Emerald AI on the conviction that the intelligence driving the AI revolution could solve its own greatest bottleneck: power. Our demonstrations around the world proved that data centers can adjust their power use precisely when the grid needs relief, without compromising critical computing workloads. Today that technology runs commercially at full data centre scale, and this financing lets us take it everywhere AI is built.

Varun Sivaram, founder and CEO of Emerald AI

From climate diplomacy to grid software

Sivaram founded Emerald AI in November 2024, drawing on a career spanning renewable energy and climate policy. A Rhodes Scholar with a doctorate in solar physics, he previously served as chief strategy and innovation officer at Ørsted, the world's largest offshore wind company, and as chief technology officer at ReNew Power, India's largest renewable energy company. During the first two years of the Biden administration, he held the position of managing director for clean energy while also serving as senior advisor to climate envoy John Kerry, and helped establish the First Movers Coalition.

Over the past year, Emerald AI has conducted five demonstrations at commercial data centres in Arizona, Illinois, Virginia, Oregon, and London, working with partners including Nvidia, EPRI, Oracle, Nebius, and National Grid. The company has since transitioned to commercial deployment, with operations now running across an entire data centre in California, where it has sustained grid-responsive power flexibility during peak grid strain.

A partnership with Silicon Valley Power created what the company describes as the nation's first Flexible Load Interconnection Program, offering data centres expanded grid access in return for verified, dispatchable flexibility. In Manassas, Virginia, Emerald AI is collaborating with Digital Realty and Nvidia on the nearly 100-megawatt Vera Rubin AI Research Factory, which has undergone testing with EPRI, Dominion, and the PJM Interconnection and is expected to launch later this year.

Focusing on demand-side flexibility instead of new power supply

The company's strategy diverges from competitors pursuing alternative approaches. Verse raised $54 million to build data centre facilities paired with on-site battery systems, while Last Energy secured $100 million to develop small nuclear reactors as power sources for data centres. Ireland's GridBeyond operates closer to Emerald AI's model, using software to manage flexible demand across grids rather than constructing new generation capacity.

Rather than treating power supply as the flexible resource, Emerald AI's approach is narrower and tailored specifically to AI infrastructure, positioning the computing power within a data centre as the flexible asset.

What comes next

The company plans to deploy the new capital toward expanding commercial operations globally. Its customer base encompasses AI companies, data centre operators, and electric utilities.

The binding constraint on AI is no longer chips or capital; it is power, and software is the fastest way through it. Emerald AI has converted world-class research into commercial deployments faster than any company we have seen in this category.

John Tough, managing partner at Energize Capital

Emerald AI's compute workload orchestration platform makes flexibility a permanent feature of how data centers are powered. This turns data centers into grid-responsive assets instead of energy-hogging liabilities.

Zachary Bogue, co-founder and managing partner at DCVC

Interest in AI infrastructure startups has accelerated over the past year as major technology companies have expanded data centre capacity, driving higher valuations and faster funding for companies addressing power constraints. Morgan Stanley forecasts that global electricity demand will rise by more than 1 trillion kWh annually by 2030, with data centres accounting for nearly 20% of that increase. Emerald AI's own analysis, citing the International Energy Agency, suggests data centres will represent nearly half of U.S. electricity demand growth through 2030.

Emerald AI was recently recognised as one of the 2026 TIME100 Most Influential Companies and named a 2026 Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum.

Source: Tech Funding News