Lucend Secures $3.3 Million Seed Funding to Launch AI Efficiency Platform in US Data Centers

Lucend Secures $3.3 Million Seed Funding to Launch AI Efficiency Platform in US Data Centers January 27, 2026 As the global demand for artificial intelligence places unprecedented strain on digital infrastructure, optimizing data center efficiency has become a critical financial and environmental imperative. In response, Dutch startup Lucend has raised $3.3 million in a seed funding round to accelerate the US expansion of its AI-powered platform designed to slash energy and water consumption in data centers. The funding round was led by Remarkable Ventures Climate (RVC), with participation from Mitsubishi Electric Innovation Fund, New Climate Ventures, Avesta, Stepchange, and existing investor 4impact capital. The capital will fuel the commercial rollout of Lucend's "Transparent AI" platform across the United States. The company, formerly known as Coolgradient, aims to help operators "illuminate complex operational environments" and act with greater confidence. Lucend's system analyzes billions of operational data points daily from assets like chillers, UPSs, and cooling towers, providing prescriptive recommendations for efficiency gains. Co-founder Jasper de Vries emphasized the platform's "human-in-the-loop" approach, which ensures operator oversight to build trust. "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," de Vries stated. The platform is already deployed internationally with clients including Digital Realty, Global Switch, and T5 Data Centers across Europe and Asia. This global deployment has allowed Lucend to train its algorithms on diverse climate conditions and infrastructure designs. According to the company, these existing deployments have yielded significant results, including a 25 percent reduction in power usage, a 30 percent cut in water consumption, and improved Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metrics. Co-founder René Gompel framed the solution as essential for the AI era, noting that it enables measurable improvements without major new capital expenditure. "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," Gompel said. Murat Aktihanoglu, Managing Partner at lead investor RVC, praised Lucend's foresight, calling it a "category-defining company." "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," Aktihanoglu remarked. The US launch positions Lucend to capture a growing market seeking to balance soaring computational demands with sustainability and cost-control goals. Source: datacenterdynamics