Aston Power Secures $20M Series A Funding

As exponential AI growth drives data center expansion nationally, proptech has moved into the sector to help provide the vast amount of power needed to operate those facilities straining to keep up with demand.

One such proptech company, Aston Power, announced last week that it secured $20 million in Series A funding to expand its full-stack power services to data centers. TDK Ventures and Building Ventures led the funding, with JLL Spark Global Ventures and others participating.

Aston Power also announced that it has formed a partnership with TDK Ventures and JLL Spark Global Ventures to grow further into the AI physical infrastructure boom.

“These companies are really interesting to us, because, if you look at it as sort of a value chain, we’re delivering the service to the data center,” said Greg Robinson, co-founder and CEO of Aston Power, which builds software to orchestrate power services, including generation, transmission and on-site assets, with a focus on renewable energy sources. “The people who deal with most of the land and the demand for those data centers is JLL. Their clients are telling JLL, ‘I need solutions to this, and I don’t want to be in the power business.’ That’s the demand side.

“On the other end of the spectrum is TDK. They make a lot of components that end up inside of these data centers. They have the same challenge: If you don’t build data centers and you don’t put these products in these data centers, and you don’t do it in a smart way by using clean energy, it’s a problem. Aston’s approach to building this network is actually in line with how TDK wants to deploy their components. They’re on the original equipment manufacturer side, while building ventures’ limited partners are some of the largest companies that are building these data centers.”

The seemingly insatiable demand for artificial intelligence and data centers has spurred the rapid growth of Aston Power, which was founded in 2022. The company employs 13 full-time staff and collaborates with a number of large-scale engineering firms, generating approximately 2 gigawatts of power capacity in development across projects in Arizona, Texas and New Mexico, with further expansion to come in Florida, Pennsylvania and New York, said Robinson.

Aston Power is not yet profitable, in part because its capital is focused on expanding to keep up with the high demand for data center power services, he added.

“The growth is such madness that we are raising this money to sort of scale up against this demand, and we keep putting every dollar we make into meeting that,” Robinson explained. “We are trying our best to keep up. And, when I say the demand is off the charts, I mean we have customers who come to us and say, ‘I would suggest you spend as much money as you possibly can and continue to build, because we need as much as you can possibly make.’ That’s anecdotal, but it’s happening.”

The “More power, Scotty!” cries from data centers come as AI infrastructure’s power demand outpaces the ability of traditional utility systems to deliver electricity fast enough, according to the Aston Power funding announcement. Whether from public opposition, or regulatory and business model constraints, public utilities are increasingly telling large industrial customers and data center operators to “bring your own power.” That forces companies into a role they were never designed to play: securing and coordinating power infrastructure themselves.

Those cries for help from data center developers and operators are being heeded by Aston Power’s investors as well.

“AI infrastructure growth is creating entirely new pressures on energy and industrial systems,” David Delfassy, investment director at TDK Ventures, said in a statement. “What stood out to us about Aston is their focus on solving the coordination and deployment challenges that increasingly determine whether large-scale projects can get built at all.”

In addition, AI is changing infrastructure requirements faster than the traditional power industry can keep up with.

Building Ventures’ data center clients are also making their voices heard. Jesse Devitte, co-founder and general partner at Building Ventures, added in the announcement: “We continue to hear from operators, developers, general contractors and companies on the ground that power availability is one of biggest factors in determining where projects get built, how fast they can scale, and whether the often compressed timelines are possible. The future of data center development will increasingly hinge on access to sufficient reliable power.”

As utilities struggle to keep pace with growing power demand, data center developers and large industrial operators are increasingly being forced to secure and coordinate power infrastructure themselves.

“The power crisis facing large industrial demand is the defining infrastructure challenge of this era, and Aston is solving the hardest part of that problem at a scale no one else is,” Ajey Kaushal, a principal at JLL Spark Global Ventures, said in the announcement. “Their ability to bring our clients to power years ahead of conventional timelines gives JLL a meaningful edge in winning and serving the largest energy demand clients.”

Philip Russo can be reached at prusso@commercialobserver.com.