Omen AI raises $31M to monitor data center coolant health

What happened

Omen AI, founded in 2024 by 18-year-old Zach Laberge, announced a $31 million（約50億円） Series A funding round led by Nava Ventures. The startup makes a spectrometer that monitors liquid-cooling fluid in real time to detect bacterial growth before it causes system failures. Omen has raised $40 million（約64億円） total since its founding and is working with a dozen data center customers, including TensorWave.

Why it matters

Data centers running AI chips at higher temperatures to maximize compute power are pushing their liquid-cooling systems to the limit—mixing in more water for better heat absorption, but risking bacterial contamination that forces costly shutdowns lasting five or six hours. Real-time fluid monitoring lets operators catch problems early rather than flushing entire racks blind, eliminating unnecessary downtime and the potential cost of millions of dollars per incident.

What to watch

Omen began in heavy equipment but pivoted to data centers about six months ago after Caterpillar dealerships—themselves serving data center power needs—asked if the company could monitor building-side cooling systems. A competitor, Pyxis, an established water-monitoring firm, rolled out its own data center coolant monitoring product earlier this month.