TEDCO-backed Flexnode, which builds data centers and other digital infrastructure, has closed on a $9 million seed round led by San Francisco-headquartered Zacua Ventures. Other backers included New York-based SHoP Architects, San Francisco’s Yes VC, Kansas City, Mo.-based JE Dunn and London-headquartered Arup.
Last year, the Bethesda, Md., startup raised $500,000 from Maryland’s state technology fund TEDCO. It also received a $3.5 million Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA-E) innovation award from the Department of Energy to develop a prefabricated, modularly designed data center with efficient cooling technologies.
Bespoke Solutions
“A decade ago, the prevailing belief was that the cloud would dominate the future of data storage. However, the last few years have demonstrated that local data infrastructures are often preferable for reasons relating to speed, sustainability and regulation,” said Andrew Lindsey, Flexnode’s co-founder and CEO.
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Lindsey, a former executive of real estate developer Alpha Corp., and Robert Mazer, founder of the Washington, D.C. accelerator Smart City Works, co-founded Flexnode in 2019, expecting to bring modern technologies, innovation and bespoke solutions to the building of data centers and other digital infrastructure. Lindsey is a member of the governing board of LF Edge, an umbrella organization that aims to establish an open, interoperable framework for edge computing.
“Flexnode is working to make a flexible solution that can meet great data challenges,” Teddy Gresser, director of TEDCO’s Seed Funds, said last year. “With how engrossed data computation, storage and networking is in our society today, Flexnode’s innovation could be a game changer for the digital infrastructure market.”
DCaaS Model
Flexnode has pushed a so-called Data-Center-as-a-Service (DCaaS) business model, and micro data centers. It offers efficient construction modeled on DFMA —Design for Manufacture and Assembly — and full lifecycle management. The company says its data centers can bring big savings via liquid cooling, and are easy to install because they can be fully disassembled. Lindsey has also advanced the goal of helping smaller firms gain access to such advanced digital infrastructure.
