Submer develops immersion cooling systems that operate entire server racks inside vessels filled with a proprietary, biodegradable, non-conducting coolant (which the company says has the viscosity of water). Its product lineup includes a range of immersion fluids and smart containers designed for servers, and the company reports agreements with major server OEMs including Dell and Intel. Co-founded by Pol Valls (currently CFO) and CTO Daniel Pope, Submer counts at least one hyperscaler, telecoms like Telefónica, corporates such as ExxonMobil, the European Commission, and major research centers among its customers. The founders developed the solution drawing on retired industrial engineers and material scientists, and the company has been building an ecosystem of compatible server components. Submer has raised $55.5M in the current round at an implied valuation of about $500M and—per PitchBook—has now raised around $100M total. The startup recently appointed Patrick Smets as CEO in January 2024 and plans to use the new funding to scale its business and expand partnerships and customer deployments. Submer develops an immersion-cooling system that operates servers submerged in an eco-friendly, non-toxic, non-flammable and biodegradable fluid housed in specialized containers. The company says the approach can reduce energy consumption by 50%, cut water use by 99%, and take up 85% less space. Founders Pol Valls and Daniel Pope developed the technology with retired industrial thermodynamics engineers and reached a viable product after six prototype iterations. The founders briefly advanced to final interviews with Y Combinator but were not accepted. Submer positions its technology for edge and urban deployments where low-latency applications (5G, smart cars, IoT) require compute closer to users and contrasts its approach with large-scale experiments like Microsoft’s underwater servers. The market opportunity is cited at about $25 billion (Global Market Insights) and the company recently raised roughly $12 million in new financing led by impact investor Norrsken VC and Tim Reynolds.

Total raised

$68M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Oct 2024