GridCARE announced it has raised a $64 million oversubscribed Series A round to accelerate what the company describes as a new category called “Power Acceleration” for AI infrastructure. The financing was led by Sutter Hill Ventures, with participation from John Doerr, along with utility and institutional investors including National Grid Partners, Future Energy Ventures, Emerson Collective, Stanford University, and existing investors including Xora, Aina Ventures, Overture, Acclimate Ventures, and Clearvision Ventures.
The company said the financing represents a significant increase in valuation from its prior round less than a year ago. According to GridCARE, the funding validates a growing industry belief that power infrastructure, rather than compute availability, is becoming the primary bottleneck limiting AI expansion.
GridCARE’s platform, called Energize, uses physics-based AI models to evaluate grid conditions in real time, including congestion, outages, weather conditions, and fluctuations in demand. The company said the platform helps utilities, data center developers, and energy providers identify unused or underutilized power capacity already present in existing grid infrastructure.
The company believes this approach can dramatically shorten interconnection timelines for AI factories and large-scale data centers from years to months.
GridCARE co-founder and CEO Amit Narayan described the industry challenge as the “Time-to-Energize Crisis,” arguing that the gap between when power is needed and when it can realistically be delivered is becoming one of the most significant obstacles facing the AI economy.
GridCARE cited Stanford research showing that grid utilization averages roughly 30%, suggesting large amounts of existing infrastructure capacity remain inaccessible under traditional utility operating frameworks.
The company’s technology aims to unlock that hidden capacity without requiring years of expensive transmission upgrades.
GridCARE co-founder and CTO Ram Rajagopal, a Stanford professor currently on leave from the university, said the largest source of near-term power capacity for AI infrastructure already exists within current grids and simply needs to be identified and activated more efficiently.
GridCARE emphasized that its approach is designed to operate in collaboration with utilities rather than outside them. The company said utilities face increasing pressure from data center growth, electrification, and industrial expansion while still maintaining affordability and reliability for existing customers.
Earlier this year, GridCARE collaborated with Portland General Electric on a project in Hillsboro, Oregon that the company said identified a pathway to unlock more than 400 megawatts of capacity, with the first 80 megawatts expected online in 2026.
According to GridCARE, the company is currently engaged in projects across more than a dozen markets representing over 2 gigawatts of prospective AI compute capacity.
The company also announced plans to host its inaugural GridCARE Power Acceleration Summit in September 2026, bringing together leaders from the AI and energy sectors to focus on accelerating grid capacity and AI infrastructure deployment.
KEY QUOTES:
“A year ago, few people were talking about power as a bottleneck for AI – today it’s the rate-limiting step for the entire industry. GridCARE is directly addressing that bottleneck, with an unmatched team, deep domain expertise, and overwhelming customer demand. Power sits beneath every other layer of the AI stack, and we believe Power Acceleration will be the key technology that enables the AI economy to scale.”
Vic Miller, Managing Director, Sutter Hill Ventures
“While AI is accelerating breakthroughs in medicine, science, and climate, power remains a bottleneck. GridCARE delivers affordable, sustainable energy by unlocking capacity in the grid we’ve already built.”
John Doerr, Investor And Author Of Speed & Scale
“This gap between when power is needed and when it can be delivered is emerging as one of the most significant constraints on growth in the AI economy. We call this the Time-to-Energize Crisis. It’s leaving AI factories waiting for power when they should be driving progress, slowing critical innovation across health, education, and climate, and putting national security and competitiveness at risk.”
Amit Narayan, Co-Founder And CEO, GridCARE
“The largest source of new power for the AI economy isn’t waiting to be built. It’s already in the ground, hidden in the grid we already have. Our job is to make it visible and put it to work in months, not years.”
Ram Rajagopal, Co-Founder And CTO, GridCARE
“The fastest and least-expensive way to add capacity to the grid is to unlock the megawatts already hidden inside it. Our work with GridCARE earlier this year supports the approach. We are deepening that commitment by joining this round as an investor and extending the collaboration into additional markets. By responsibly activating latent capacity, utilities can support economic growth, strengthen reliability, and protect affordability for the customers and communities we serve.”
Steve Smith, President, National Grid Partners And Group Chief Strategy Officer, National Grid
