Zendo Energy, the British startup building the first ‘Energy OS’ to decarbonise computing power in data centres, today announces it has raised £1.75 million in a pre-seed funding round.
The round was led by Fly Ventures, a deep tech VC firm that was a first cheque investor in UK autonomous driving unicorn Wayve. Fly is joined by Octopus Ventures and Pact VC who also participated in the round, as well as angel investors from the data centre industry.
The investment will supercharge Zendo’s development of an advanced software platform that enables data centres to adapt to the growing unpredictability of AI workloads while navigating volatile energy markets that increasingly rely on intermittent renewable sources such as wind and solar.
Thanks to the widespread adoption of AI and rapid rise of cloud computing and streaming services, electricity demand from data centres globally is expected to more than double by 2030 - almost as much energy as Japan uses today.
Only half of this demand is likely to be met by renewable sources, posing a significant challenge to global progress towards decarbonisation.
Zendo says their models can save data centres up to 25% in energy costs and simplify the integration of renewables into their power mix.
Zendo’s AI-powered software delivers flexible energy solutions with predictive analytics that allows data centre operators to analyse their customers’ usage patterns, forecast demand and secure more customised energy tariffs. Their models also unlock ‘stranded power’, enabling operators to maximise the value of their existing infrastructure.
The strength of its pre-seed round reflects the market’s confidence in Zendo’s ability to increase revenue and generate energy savings for data centres as demand for the industry’s services reaches an all-time high.
Data centres face growing difficulties in planning for their customers’ energy demands due to the boom in AI workloads, which is expected to account for 70% of data centres’ total capacity by 2030.
It’s a particular challenge for colocation data centres, which lease server space to multiple companies and must deliver power to a diverse range of customers without visibility into the applications driving their core demand.
Zendo’s co-founders, CEO Jade Batstone and COO Drew Barrett, bring over two decades of experience in renewable energy and B2B software to the data centre industry.
Prior to founding Zendo, Drew spent 13 years at Octopus Energy, latterly as Head of Renewable Procurement, leading the multi-million turnover business unit for the UK’s largest energy supplier.
Silicon Valley native Jade was an early employee at payments company Square and helped to set the business up in the UK. She has also built and led product innovation teams at SWIFT, developing software products to solve critical challenges in the financial services industry.
