As the focus of AI shifts from training to inference, infrastructure startup Gruve has raised $50 million to help close the growing power gap and bring AI models to practical use.
Founded in 2024, Gruve partners with data center and colocation providers like Lineage and OpenColo to leverage unused power and space. The company says it currently has about 500 megawatts of power available across its network of data centers in major U.S. cities.
“The biggest challenge in AI today is not having enough power,” said Tarun Raisoni, CEO and co-founder of Gruve. “We provide software that finds stuck power and connects it.”
A serial entrepreneur, Rezzoni previously founded data center startups Rahi and ZPE, which were acquired by power infrastructure companies Wesco and Legrand, respectively, in nine-figure deals.
Gruve’s Series A sequel has raised a total of $87.5 million, according to the company. Xora Innovation, a venture firm backed by Singapore’s state-owned investment fund Temasek, led the latest round. Also participating were Mayfield, Cisco Investments, Acclimate Ventures, and AI Space.
The company says Gruve currently has 30 megawatts available for order at four locations in California, New Jersey, Texas and Washington, and customer data is operated from the California and New Jersey locations.
Raisoni added that geographic distribution is key, and using software that can route requests to the closest server location can result in faster transmission and lower costs.
Raisoni told Business Insider that Gruve typically works with Neocloud, which provides the hardware and then takes care of setup, management and day-to-day operations.
Unlike the cloud giants, Gruve offers hands-on engineering support because many companies lack in-house machine learning and data science talent, Raisoni said.
Gruve’s customers include neocloud, AI startups, and enterprises, most of which fall into the third bucket, including Bio-Rad, PayPal, Cisco, and Stanford Health Care, Laizzoni said. In the future, Groove plans to expand its operations in Japan and Western Europe.
Gruve has approximately 600 employees, 70% of whom are based in India and focus on security operations. Raisoni said the new funding will go toward hiring engineers and machine learning researchers to build inference software.
