Cloverleaf Infrastructure has secured over $300m (€274m) from investors including NGP and Sandbrook Capital to develop data centre sites in the US.
The newly-formed developer specialising in large-scale digital infrastructure sites powered by low-carbon electricity said the fundraise was also backed by its management team.
David Berry, Cloverleaf’s CEO, said: ”The rapid growth in demand for electricity to power cloud computing and artificial intelligence poses a major climate risk if fuelled by high-emission fossil fuels. However, it’s also a major opportunity to catalyse the modernisation of the US grid and the transition to a smarter and more sustainable electricity system through a novel approach to development.
“Cloverleaf is committed to making this vision a reality with the support of leading climate investors like Sandbrook and NGP.”
Brian Janous, Cloverleaf’s chief commercial officer, said: “The large tech companies have become dominant players in the electricity sector, and they are genuinely determined to power their growth with the lowest possible emissions.
Achieving this objective doesn’t depend on disruptive new technologies as much as it does on dedicated teams working hand in hand with utility partners to maximise the use of the clean generation, storage and other technologies we already have.”
Alfredo Marti, partner at Sandbrook, said: “The sustainable development of digital infrastructure at scale is fundamentally a technical power problem. We have witnessed members of the Cloverleaf team effectively address this challenge for many years through a blend of creativity, specialised engineering, a partnership mindset, and astute capital deployment.”
Sam Stoutner, partner at NGP, said: “Having backed hundreds of energy companies in the US over more than 30 years, we believe the opportunity set for clean-powered digital infrastructure development is as compelling as anything we’ve seen before, and the convergence of exceptional talent from both the power and digital sectors at Cloverleaf is truly extraordinary.”
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