SynapSense, a US-based company to improve the energy efficiency of data centres, has raised $5m of corporate venture funding from the financial division of industrial conglomerate General Electric and existing investors.
GE Energy Financial Services is joining SynapSense’s venture capital investors Emerald Technology Ventures, Sequoia Capital, American River Ventures, Nth Power and DFJ Frontier as well as Robert Bosch Venture Capital, the corporate venturing division of private German industrial conglomerate Bosch that joined last March as part of a $7m series B extension. The existing consortium had invested $11m in the earlier close of the series B in October 2007 and raised $2m in its series A round in 2006.
The $5m investment will develop SynapSense’s data centre monitoring, adaptive control and energy management technology, which GE has been using for two years.
GE will now also work with SynapSense on digital energy through a commercial partnership with GE Intelligent Platforms’ Proficy Software and Control, a technology business that provides software, hardware, services, and expertise in automation and embedded computing.
Kevin Skillern, head of venture capital investing at GE Energy Financial Services, said: "SynapSense [offers] opportunities in a data centre equipment market estimated at $40bn a year, with annual electricity consumption costing $7bn."