Amsterdam-based Lucend as we speak introduced that it has raised €2.7 million ($3.3 million) in Seed funding to deliver its clear information centre optimisation to the U.S. market, serving to enterprises illuminate advanced operational environments.
The spherical was led by Exceptional Ventures Local weather (RVC), different traders embrace Mitsubishi Electrical’s Innovation Fund, New Local weather Ventures, Avesta Fund, and Stepchange Ventures with assist from their present investor, 4impact capital.
“Lucend’s Clear AI platform analyses billions of information factors each day and supplies prescriptive suggestions that information centre operators can overview and select whether or not or to not implement,” says Jasper de Vries, co-founder of Lucend. “Lucend’s human-in-the-loop method removes threat by making certain human oversight as operators develop belief in our suggestions that will increase effectivity and reliability, and allows new approaches to upkeep and substitute selections.”
Lucend’s Seed spherical sits inside a broader set of sizeable European investments in AI-driven infrastructure, data-centre expertise and vitality optimisation in 2025.
Within the UK, London-based Nscale raised a €958 million Sequence B to scale its AI cloud and data-centre infrastructure platform. In Germany, Darmstadt-based etalytics prolonged its Sequence A to €16 million to increase its AI-powered vitality optimisation software program throughout energy-intensive environments, together with data-centre-adjacent use circumstances. Additionally in Germany, Stuttgart-based Q.ANT secured €62 million to advance photonic processors designed to ship extra energy-efficient computing for AI and high-performance workloads.
Taken collectively, these rounds signify over €1 billion of capital flowing into adjoining areas of the data-centre and AI infrastructure stack in 2025, offering context for Lucend’s extra focused Seed funding centered on software-led operational effectivity relatively than new {hardware} or capability build-out.
“As AI’s demand for information centres grows, information centre operators must prioritise effectivity and uptime whereas additionally conserving sources like vitality and water,” provides René Gompel, co-founder, “Lucend and our Clear AI platform open a pathway to constant, measurable effectivity enhancements whereas growing uptime, with out new CapEx, and with out disrupting present operations, whereas saving a few of our clients tens of millions in annual working value.”
Based in 2023, Lucend is a world expertise firm that goals to ship each day readability for information heart operations by means of Clear AI. Previously often called Coolgradient, Lucend turns present information into clear, verifiable optimisations that empower operators to make smarter, sooner, and extra assured selections whereas remaining in management.
Co-founders Jasper de Vries and René Gompel every deliver 20 years of expertise expertise and management throughout quite a lot of expertise firms and industries.
Lucend’s Clear AI platform connects to present infrastructure, no new {hardware} required, to rework static methods into adaptive, self-learning environments. The software program takes present sensor information to see connections throughout 300 billion sensor readings.
In response to Lucend, their AI analyses billions of information factors each day and supplies prescriptive suggestions.
Komi Matsubara, Govt Officer (Vice President, Enterprise Innovation), Mitsubishi Electrical Company, says: “Lucend has robust competitiveness in AI-driven information centre optimisation applied sciences, and we anticipate its options to considerably enhance information centre operational effectivity and cut back prices. By combining our {hardware} and infrastructure management applied sciences with Lucend’s AI platform, we goal to ship larger worth to our clients and strengthen our competitiveness within the information heart enterprise.”
Lucend has been implementing its AI resolution throughout dozens of information facilities since 2023, spanning Melbourne, Singapore, Paris, London, Amsterdam and Chicago.
Working with world information heart operators like Digital Realty, World Swap and T5, Lucend has collected information from totally different climates and designs, working with closed-loop methods, adiabatic cooling designs, cooling and electrical belongings like chillers, IACs, UPSs and turbines or information factors like valve openings, fan speeds, temperature setpoints and
pressures.
Greater than half of all world information facilities are situated within the U.S., making it a key marketplace for Lucend.
To-date, Lucend clients have reportedly achieved:
- ~40% discount in energy use effectiveness (PUE)
- ~25% discount in energy use
- ~30% discount in water use
- ~40% enchancment in group effectivity
“Lucend is a category-defining firm led by a world-class group. Jasper de Vries brings deep AI and product management and constructed an intuitive platform UI, with subject outcomes that outperform friends,” notes Murat Aktihanoglu, Managing Associate, Exceptional Ventures Local weather (RVC). “René Gompel enhances with many years of B2B software program expertise and prior entrepreneurial success. The group’s early perception into this market, years earlier than the AI increase, has positioned them properly forward of opponents, lots of whom are simply now getting into the house.”
As per feedback by the corporate, the regulatory surroundings provides urgency for maximising information facilities’ useful resource effectivity. Whereas no federal effectivity mandate exists, state and native rules are tightening:
- New York State penalises excessive electricity-consuming amenities beneath native sustainability
frameworks. - Santa Clara, California requires operators to allocate a part of a substation’s capability to surrounding clients, limiting obtainable vitality.
On the federal degree, the White House’s July 2025 directive on accelerating information centre allowing underscores the necessity to scale capability effectively whereas assembly native vitality constraints.
Murat continues, “Vitality availability is essential to the transformation of energy transmission for information centre operators, cloud suppliers, and huge enterprises. Lucend presents an rapid resolution to seize the large alternative within the U.S., and we’re excited to work with the group to speed up the corporate’s progress in 2026 and past.”
