As AI chips become more powerful — and hotter — data centers are turning to liquid rather than air to cool servers.
For the newest AI systems, fans alone can’t remove enough heat. That shift has created a new problem: keeping coolant from degrading or becoming contaminated. Omen AI announced a $31 million funding round in June to address this issue.
Data centers typically mail coolant samples to labs to check the health of their systems, then wait days for results. Omen’s sensors continuously analyze coolant in real time to detect contamination, metal particles, bacteria, and other signs of degradation.
Omen’s 20-year-old founder and CEO Zach Laberge likened it to a “blood test.” The startup aims to catch problems early so operators don’t have to shut down AI chip clusters and flush bad coolant — a process that can cost millions in lost computing time, he said.
Laberge founded the company in 2024, initially to build sensors for excavators in the construction industry. After about a year, he realized its fluid-monitoring technology was “100 times more valuable for data centers.”
Nava Ventures led the funding round, with participation from CRV, former Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, Mann+Hummel, and executives from AI cloud startup TensorWave, a customer. Omen has raised $41.5 million to date.
The company sells permanent sensors and portable devices through subscriptions priced per megawatt. It has more than a dozen customers, Laberge said, most of which are neoclouds, or specialized AI cloud providers. It is also starting to work with larger cloud companies.
In addition to monitoring coolant in data centers, Omen’s devices also analyze fluids in industrial machines.
Laberge said he’s been creating companies since he was a kid growing up in Nova Scotia — from selling smartwatches to running a dog-cookie business and a tool-rental platform.
Omen has 30 employees in San Francisco, most of whom are college dropouts, Laberge said. He added that he hires for skill over formal credentials and that Omen will use the funding to grow its engineering team and scale manufacturing.
Here’s a look at the pitch deck Omen AI used to raise its $31 million Series A round. The deck has been redacted so that it can be shared publicly.
