Index Ventures and Energy Impact Partners lead $45 million Series A for Ampere Cloud to secure power for AI data centers

Ampere Cloud, a San Francisco startup that brokers and underwrites power for AI data centers, said Monday it raised a $45 million Series A led by Index Ventures and Energy Impact Partners. The company aims to close the gap between surging GPU deployments and limited grid capacity by packaging long term power contracts, interconnection strategy, and site selection into a single platform.

The timing reflects a shift in venture focus toward power as a gating factor for AI growth. Investors are funding companies that can translate utility markets and transmission queues into predictable capacity for model training and inference.

Customers use Ampere Cloud to compare brownfield and greenfield sites, price firmed clean power, and model queue risk under recent FERC reforms. The startup arranges PPAs and tolling agreements, then layers in storage or reciprocating engines for reliability, with revenue from a software fee and a take rate on contracted megawatt hours.

Ampere Cloud says it has facilitated commitments for more than 900 megawatts of contracted and optioned capacity across Texas, the Midwest, and the Southeast. The company targets time to energization under 24 months for brownfield sites, which remains well below typical interconnection timelines for greenfield renewables alone.

Index Ventures has been adding industrial and climate exposure after several funds leaned into AI applications. Energy Impact Partners brings utility relationships and experience with corporate PPAs. The syndicate also includes existing seed backers from infrastructure and grid software, according to the company.

Competition is forming around adjacent models. Developers are raising capital to build behind the meter generation near data centers, while other startups sell only siting analytics or only PPA marketplaces. Ampere Cloud is pitching a full stack approach that ties commitments to delivery, which increases complexity but can lock in larger account values.

Valuation was not disclosed. The company plans to use the capital to expand interconnection engineering, risk underwriting, and regional utility partnerships, and to pre arrange storage assets that can firm intermittent supply.

If startups can reliably turn power procurement into a software defined product with guaranteed delivery, venture allocation into AI infrastructure will spread from chips and model tooling into energy markets, shifting the center of gravity for performance and defensibility toward control of electrons rather than parameters.