Cloverleaf Infrastructure has secured $300 million in funding for its clean energy data center campuses.
The company, which is developing clean-powered, ready-to-build data center sites in the US, announced this week that it has secured capital commitments totaling more than $300m from private equity investors NGP and Sandbrook Capital, alongside contributions from its management team.
“The rapid growth in demand for electricity to power cloud computing and artificial intelligence poses a major climate risk if fueled by high-emission fossil fuels," said David Berry, Cloverleaf’s CEO.
"However, it’s also a major opportunity to catalyze the modernization of the US grid and the transition to a smarter and more sustainable electricity system through a novel approach to development."
Berry previously co-founder and CFO at clean energy and transmission developers ConnectGen and Clean Line Energy Partners, added: "Cloverleaf is committed to making this vision a reality with the support of leading climate investors like Sandbrook and NGP."
Founded this year by Brian Janous, the former head of energy at Microsoft, alongside Berry and Jonathan Abebe, Cloverleaf is a developer of large-scale digital infrastructure sites powered by low-carbon electricity.
The company has yet to name any locations for its campuses or outline the scope of its developments.
Janous, now 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 maximize the use of the clean generation, storage, and other technologies we already have.”
Cloverleaf aims to collaborate with regional US utilities and data center operators to deliver scalable clean electricity through investments in transmission, grid interconnection, land, onsite power generation, and electricity storage.
As well as Janous, the company is led by executives from independent power developers such as Pattern Energy and ConnectGen, as well as other former Microsoft staffers.
The Cloverleaf management team also includes chief technical officer Abebe, who has held senior engineering and technical roles at the US Department of Energy, Pattern Energy, and Clean Line Energy; and VP Nur Bernhardt, formerly director of energy strategy at Microsoft.
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, specialized engineering, a partnership mindset, and astute capital deployment.”
Sam Stoutner, partner at NGP, added: “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.”
Sandbrook Capital is a private investment firm dedicated to investing in energy infrastructure. Founded in 1988, NGP is a private equity firm focused on energy transformation.
