SynapSense Corporation, whose technology improves energy efficiency and cuts power and cooling costs in data centers, is deepening its relationship with GE by securing an investment and commercial partnership as part of a focus on digital energy services, the Smart Grid, and ecomagination. GE Energy Financial Services is joining SynapSense’s investors Emerald Technology Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, American River Ventures, Nth Power, and DFJ Frontier in a combined $5 million investment for the development and market expansion of SynapSense’s data center monitoring, adaptive control, and energy management technology. Additional financial details of the investment were not disclosed.
“Deepening our relationship with GE through this investment and commercial collaboration will play a major role in helping SynapSense deliver digital energy services that extend wireless control and resource management to the entire IT facility infrastructure,” says Peter Van Deventer, CEO of SynapSense.
GE, which has used SynapSense technology in many of its data centers including GE Corporate and NBC Universal since 2008, will now collaborate with SynapSense on digital energy through a commercial partnership with GE Intelligent Platforms, a high-performance technology business that provides software, hardware, services, and expertise in automation and embedded computing. The partnership will combine SynapSense’s technology with GE Intelligent Platform’s Proficy software and control platform. This combined offering will enable data center operators to optimize energy use by continuously aligning cooling capacity with changes in IT load, saving up to 35 percent of cooling costs while ensuring security, redundancy and resiliency. GE’s Proficy software provides real-time insight on data center and other operational performance metrics to give customers information to make better business decisions.
“SynapSense is a strong addition to GE’s digital energy, Smart Grid, and ecomagination-related investments, offering multiple commercial and development collaboration opportunities in a data center equipment market estimated at $40 billion a year, with annual electricity consumption costing $7 billion,” says Kevin Skillern, head of venture capital investing at GE Energy Financial Services.
Ecomagination is GE’s commitment to imagine and build innovative solutions to environmental challenges while driving economic growth. It is designed to help meet customers’ demand for more energy-efficient products and drive GE’s reliable growth. GE Energy Financial Services has been an active investor in emerging, market-leading ecomagination-, Smart Grid- and digital energy services-related technology companies. SynapSense’s data center monitoring and energy management solutions have been deployed in data centers operated by Fortune 500 companies from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. For more information visit www.SynapSense.com. To learn more about GE Financial Services go to www.geenergyfinancialservices.com.
