Announced August 25, 2026; selected disclosed rounds sum to $217.5M.
AI infrastructure · Grid flexibility software
Emerald AI
Emerald AI’s Conductor software coordinates AI workloads and onsite energy resources to adjust data-center electricity demand when the power grid needs flexibility.
01 / EARLY-STAGE SCENARIO
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Use post-investment, fully diluted entry equity value. Ending equity value is after debt. 0 ending value models a total loss. Dilution means ownership lost, not the percentage of a financing round.
Starting reference: $1.05B on 2026-08-25. Company-announced valuation. The release does not specify pre-/post-money basis; using it as entry equity value is a scenario assumption. Source ↗
Uses hypothetical pro-rata equity, your dilution and fee assumptions. It does not establish actual share rights.
ASSUMPTION SCENARIO · NOT A VERIFIED RETURN
Emerald AIEarly-stage equity sensitivity
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Enter the missing valuations or load the labeled example, then select Calculate.
This simplifies ownership to pro-rata equity. Preferred rights, SAFEs, option pools, conversion terms and actual investor eligibility are not established. Excludes taxes, recurring fund fees, distributions and liquidation preferences. No exit probability or investment recommendation is implied.
Formula, fee treatment & limits
Invested amount = cash outlay × (1 − upfront fee). Gross value = invested amount ÷ entry equity value × (1 − cumulative dilution) × ending equity value. Carry = max(gross value − original cash outlay, 0) × carry rate. Net value = gross value − carry.
Carry here is charged only after recovering the original cash outlay, including the upfront fee. Real fund waterfalls can differ. No share price is inferred from a funding amount or company valuation. Dollar values are rounded only for display; no dates or annualized return are inferred.
AI INFRASTRUCTURE / COMPANY RESEARCH
A $1.05B valuation for making AI power demand flexible.
Reviewed Oct 1, 2026 · Dated public evidence; no live private-market quote.
Company-announced August 2026 valuation; pre-/post-money basis not stated.
- Origins
- Founded November 2024 · Washington, D.C.
- Founders
- Varun Sivaram (founder and CEO)
What the company is building
Emerald Conductor
Orchestrates computation and onsite energy resources to manage facility power draw.
Company announcement ↗25% for 3 hours
Phoenix paper reports a 256-GPU demonstration while meeting workload service targets; one experiment does not establish universal performance.
Research paper · company coauthors ↗Production grid response
NVIDIA describes its Eos facility using Conductor with Silicon Valley Power. Contract revenue and unit economics remain undisclosed.
Technology partner ↗AI + energy partners
March announcement identifies NVIDIA DSX Flex integration and collaboration across utilities, power producers and technology companies.
Company announcement ↗Financing history
| Date | Event | Amount · reported currency | Meaning & source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 1, 2025 | Seed | $24.5M | Launch financing; no valuation used from this announcement. Emerald AI launches with $24.5M ↗ |
| Oct 29, 2025 | Seed extension | $18M | Led by Lowercarbon, bringing the disclosed total to $42.5M. Seed extension brings total to $42.5M ↗ |
| Mar 31, 2026 | Strategic expansion | $25M | Led by Energy Impact Partners. Company reports a rounded $68M cumulative total. Strategic expansion round of $25M ↗ |
| Aug 25, 2026 | Series A | $150M | Co-led by Energize Capital and DCVC. Series A at $1.05B valuation ↗ |
| Aug 25, 2026 | Announced company valuation | $1.05B | Pre-/post-money basis is not specified. This supports the announced unicorn designation, not a per-share price. Series A at $1.05B valuation ↗ |
Business milestones
Phoenix field study
Paper documents a bounded demonstration of demand flexibility on an AI cluster.
Source ↗Strategic investor expansion
Energy Impact Partners leads a new round; company describes five demonstrations across U.S. and U.K. sites.
Source ↗Announced unicorn valuation
Series A prices the company at an announced $1.05B; release reports commercial deployment.
Source ↗Campus microgrid project announced
Emerald announces planned integration with Alderbuck power hardware at UC San Diego; completed results are not established by this announcement.
Source ↗NVIDIA reports production demand response
NVIDIA describes Conductor responding to Silicon Valley Power signals at its Eos facility. It distinguishes this operation from a future dedicated DSX Flex deployment in Virginia.
Source ↗
CTM INTERPRETATION
The investment question
Software could make existing grid capacity more usable sooner than building new supply. The investment question is how much of that value Emerald can capture in durable contracts while meeting strict workload service requirements.
What could work
Software deployment across data centers and utilities could scale with less manufacturing capital than physical energy infrastructure.
What could break the thesis
Workloads vary in flexibility; customers must trust orchestration, reliability and security. Utility rules, integration costs and competitive platforms affect adoption and pricing.
What remains unknown
- Selected round amounts total $217.5M. The March release rounds cumulative funding to $68M; adding $150M to that rounded figure would give $218M. These are not two separate funding events.
- A $1.05B headline cannot reveal the share price, liquidation preferences or an earlier investor’s realized return.
- The cited potential for 100 GW of U.S. grid capacity is an ecosystem-level opportunity, not Emerald’s contracted capacity or revenue.
- No verified per-share financing price, fully diluted capitalization, security conversion or investor liquidation waterfall is established in this profile.
- Audited revenue, margins, cash burn, runway and customer concentration were not verified in the reviewed public sources.
- Private shares may be illiquid, unavailable to a particular investor, diluted or worth zero. Scenario outputs do not establish investment access or a sale.
Source library
- Emerald AI launches with $24.5M ↗2025-07-01 · Company announcement
- Seed extension brings total to $42.5M ↗2025-10-29 · Company announcement
- Strategic expansion round of $25M ↗2026-03-31 · Company announcement
- Series A at $1.05B valuation ↗2026-08-25 · Company announcement
- Phoenix field demonstration paper ↗2025-07-01 · Research paper · company coauthors
- Emerald AI newsroom ↗2026-09 · Company news index
- NVIDIA describes production grid response ↗2026-09-15 · Technology partner
- Alderbuck and UC San Diego project ↗2026-09-02 · Company announcement
Financial observations & original sources5 sourced observations · expand to inspect each record
Milestones & evidence
5 sourced observationsAnnouncement date
Seed
B · Reported financing$24.5M USD
funding raised
Launch financing; no valuation used from this announcement.
Primary source checked
Emerald AI · Emerald AI launches with $24.5M (opens in a new tab)Evidence details
- Publisher
- Emerald AI
- Source location
- Emerald AI launches with $24.5M; financing disclosure
- Share class
- Not established in this record
- Checked on
- Oct 1, 2026
- Observation ID
- EMERALD-AI-1
Announcement date
Seed extension
B · Reported financing$18M USD
funding raised
Led by Lowercarbon, bringing the disclosed total to $42.5M.
Primary source checked
Emerald AI · Seed extension brings total to $42.5M (opens in a new tab)Evidence details
- Publisher
- Emerald AI
- Source location
- Seed extension brings total to $42.5M; financing disclosure
- Share class
- Not established in this record
- Checked on
- Oct 1, 2026
- Observation ID
- EMERALD-AI-2
Announcement date
Strategic expansion
B · Reported financing$25M USD
funding raised
Led by Energy Impact Partners. Company reports a rounded $68M cumulative total.
Primary source checked
Emerald AI · Strategic expansion round of $25M (opens in a new tab)Evidence details
- Publisher
- Emerald AI
- Source location
- Strategic expansion round of $25M; financing disclosure
- Share class
- Not established in this record
- Checked on
- Oct 1, 2026
- Observation ID
- EMERALD-AI-3
Announcement date
Series A
B · Reported financing$150M USD
funding raised
Co-led by Energize Capital and DCVC.
Primary source checked
Emerald AI · Series A at $1.05B valuation (opens in a new tab)Evidence details
- Publisher
- Emerald AI
- Source location
- Series A at $1.05B valuation; financing disclosure
- Share class
- Not established in this record
- Checked on
- Oct 1, 2026
- Observation ID
- EMERALD-AI-4
Announcement date
Announced company valuation
B · Reported financing$1.05B USD
company equity valuation reported
Pre-/post-money basis is not specified. This supports the announced unicorn designation, not a per-share price.
Primary source checked
Emerald AI · Series A at $1.05B valuation (opens in a new tab)Evidence details
- Publisher
- Emerald AI
- Source location
- Series A at $1.05B valuation; financing disclosure
- Share class
- Not established in this record
- Checked on
- Oct 1, 2026
- Observation ID
- EMERALD-AI-5
What’s missing matters.
There are no daily private-market prices between these observations. We do not fill the gaps with an invented curve. Investment returns require the specific security, entry terms, dilution and an actual exit or appropriate mark.
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