SynapSense Raises $7 Million for Sensors

SynapSense has raised $7 million in additional investment, the company said today, and will use the money to further develop its wireless energy sensors and expand beyond its core market in the data center sector. The financing included a new investor, Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH, which joins SynapSense's current investors: Emerald Technology Ventures, Sequoia Capital, American River Ventures, Nth Power and DFJ Frontier.

"SynapSense is enabling the energy efficient operation of data centers ranging from the world's leading stock exchange and America's largest mobile phone operator to a premier web portal and the world's busiest social networking site," said SynapSense Chief Executive Officer Peter Van Deventer. "For the first time, operators have the tools required for continuous optimization of the data center."

SynapSense previously raised $10 million in Series B financing in September 2007. The company's technology helps data center operators monitor energy use and cooling conditions through a network of sensors managed by a wireless network.

Equipment monitoring is of critical importance as companies optimize their data centers to be more energy-efficient. Data collection is essential to measuring progress and return on investment (ROI) in data center consolidations and virtualization projects, while temperature data from throughout the facility is a key tool in optimizing a data center’s cooling. The lack of instrumentation has been cited as making it difficult to calculate potential ROI on different approaches in data centers.

SynapSense is also working with many of the world's leading data center operators to implement real-time measurement of emerging industry energy-efficiency metrics, including PUE and DCiE.