[ad_1]
A startup is seeking to become one of the first hyperscalers in the “AI computing” space in Europe, with renewable energy playing a pivotal role in its pitch to potential customers.
The AI fever has spurred unprecedented demand for “computing,” which refers to the processing power, infrastructure, and resources needed for tasks such as running algorithms, implementing machine learning models, and processing data. Nvidia has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of this demand, emerging as a $3 trillion powerhouse on the back of demand for graphics processing unit (GPU) and associated AI hardware.
In parallel, an industry of cloud infrastructure providers has emerged from the back of Nvidia, raising significant amounts of money on the way. In the United States, we saw Like lambda CoreWeave has achieved a high valuation of $1 billion to expand its data center operations. Now, the Finnish startup DataCrunch It is throwing its hat into the ring, promoting itself as one of the “few serious players” in the space with all operations in Europe.
“GPU as a Service”
Founded in 2020 by CEO Robin BrionDataCrunch, like its peers, sells GPUs “as a service,” promising to reduce AI processing costs. The company said today that it has raised $13 million in seed funding, representing $7.6 million in equity funding from backers such as ByFounders, J12 Ventures and Aiven co-founder Oskari Saarenmaa. The remaining $5.4 million in debt comes from… Local tapiola and Nordea.
Although it’s somewhat unusual for a seed-stage startup to raise such a large portion of debt, DataCrunch did so for exactly the same reason that others in the space, like CoreWeave, have also raised a significant portion of debt. Huge amounts of debt. It’s all about using physical assets – such as Nvidia GPUs – as collateral to secure loans, rather than giving up more equity.
It’s also more efficient to secure large pools of capital this way, as banks can simply remove the GPUs if things go poorly for DataCrunch. For those who have control over their money, it’s much less risky than investing in a SaaS startup, for example.
“Given the business we are in, our main expenses for expansion are based on capex (capital expenditure),” Bryon told TechCrunch. “This is the logical way to do it, and as we grow, additional access to this funding becomes available.”
This new round brings DataCrunch’s total funding raised since its inception to $18 million, and will go some way to helping it build out its infrastructure to support Nvidia’s latest servers and clusters, including The shiny new H200 GPU. This, in turn, will help it grow a customer base that includes not only corporate clients like Sony, but also individual AI researchers working at companies like OpenAI.
“This has always been an important market for us, and I think this ‘single’ market has been left behind by many,” Brion said. “For me personally, this is important – on weekends, I often use our own services, and I have been like that since the beginning.”
In fact, flexible on-demand pricing is a more attractive proposition for independent researchers and developers who may only need a little computing power for their personal or university projects.
“People who are studying for a master’s or doctorate — that’s a segment we want to stay in touch with because they’re often just a few years away from doing something really great,” Brion said.
Connect them now, and reap the rewards later when they reach the right time. This is the general gist.
But there’s no escaping the giant elephant in the room, and it’s the elephant that all cloud companies need to take into account: the massive amount of power required to power this AI revolution.
The green machine
Part of DataCrunch’s “advantage” is the fact that its data centers are located in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, and Iceland – a country Powered by 100% renewable energy For years already.
“In Helsinki, we can subscribe to green energy from the grid,” Bryon said. “Currently, in one of our two Finnish data centers, waste heat is captured to heat Helsinki itself. In Iceland, we have the advantage that the ambient air temperature is always low, while the energy mix on the grid is already 100% green. So Iceland It is by far one of the greenest places in the world to have this type of operation.
This will be a big pivotal point for the company moving forward. While it plans to offer its services to any company globally, it will mostly remain anchored in the Nordic countries and Iceland. “In the future we may look to Canada if we can find suitable locations, where we can have a similar advantage in terms of the carbon footprint of our operations,” Brion said.
It’s these “green” credentials that DataCrunch also hopes will set it apart from other European competitors: companies like France’s FlexAI, which recently emerged from stealth with $30 million in seed funding; and Nebiuswhich recently rose from the ashes of Russian internet giant Yandex and has just become a public company again.
There’s a trade-off here: While low latency is often one of the big selling points for AI compute providers, DataCrunch won’t necessarily be in that group, meaning it will be better suited to a certain type of workload.
“Our strategy is that we will never be the provider with the lowest response time because we are in 100 locations around the world,” Brion said. “We’re focusing more on computing that doesn’t have as stringent latency requirements. We can still get decent enough latency, it may not be 10ms, but it will still be around 100ms.
It is also worth noting that DataCrunch’s data centers are shared “Shared location“For now, but the company says it plans to start building its own data centers in 2025 — something it will need more capital for.
“I want us to be on the path to going public, and we will need access to more capital to continue expanding the company,” Brion said.
[ad_2]