DG Matrix raises $60M to make data center power smarter

Data centres are facing a growing challenge: how to deliver enough electricity to ever-denser server racks while still relying on grid infrastructure that, in many cases, dates back roughly a century.

Conventional transformers can do the job, but they’re big and heavy and generate a lot of heat. A newer wave of solid-state transformers is designed to address those issues while also giving operators greater flexibility in converting, routing, and managing power in modern facilities.

One of the startups working on that shift, DG Matrix, has raised $60 million in a Series A funding round. The round was led by Engine Ventures, with participation from ABB, Cerberus Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, Clean Energy Ventures, Fine Structure Ventures, Helios Climate Ventures, MCJ, and Piedmont Capital.

DG Matrix has also announced a partnership to supply its Interport device to Exowatt, the company building solar-plus-storage container systems to provide 24/7 electricity to data centres.

DG Matrix’s Interport functions like a router for electricity, according to Subhashish Bhattacharya, the company’s co-founder and CTO. A single Interport can support up to 2.4 megawatts of connections. As an example, Bhattacharya said it could collect 600 kilowatts from solar panels and another 600 kilowatts from grid-scale batteries, then distribute that power to 12 server racks drawing 100 kilowatts each.

Because the Interport can combine electricity from multiple sources — including large battery systems — DG Matrix says it can eliminate the need for uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) and the supporting equipment they typically require.

The result is a smaller physical footprint for power conversion inside the data centre. DG Matrix co-founder and CEO Haroon Inam said that a single 4-by-4-foot Interport unit can replace two 4-by-30-foot skids packed with traditional power-conversion gear.

Inam also said fewer separate devices can improve overall efficiency. Legacy setups, where multiple pieces of equipment are chained together, typically achieve around 82% to 90% efficiency, he said. By contrast, Interport operates at roughly 95% to 98% efficiency. Inam argued that reliability should increase as well. “When you are using only 10%, 15% of the components that legacy is using, you’re going to be far more reliable,” he added.

DG Matrix is preparing to ship its first units to customers in June. The company’s next product is expected to be a sidecar system for delivering power directly to data centre racks, building on the same underlying technology.

At the moment, data centres make up about 90% of DG Matrix’s pipeline, with the remaining share focused on fleet EV charging. Inam said the company’s next move is to expand into building power and scale up capacity to support microgrids and minigrids for electrification projects in remote communities. In that use case, Interports would coordinate power from solar, wind, and batteries to deliver round-the-clock electricity without a grid connection.

“Nobody’s going to build a $100 million transmission line to a village,” Inam said. “Now you can spend a fraction of that money and help eliminate energy poverty.”