Gradyent secures €28M for Digital Twin Energy Grid and Sustainable Future
Gradyent secures €28M for Digital Twin Energy Grid and Sustainable Future
In the heart of Europe’s energy transition, a Rotterdam-based innovator is quietly reshaping how the world heats and cools its cities. Gradyent, founded in 2019, has secured €28 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round, announced on April 2, 2025, to scale its real-time Digital Twin Platform. Led by Blue Earth Capital, with SEB Greentech Venture Capital joining investors like Capricorn Partners and Eneco Ventures, this investment marks a pivotal step toward decarbonizing heating and cooling systems—sectors that account for nearly half of global energy consumption. Far from a mere financial milestone, it’s a signal of a technology poised to transform efficiency, resilience, and sustainability across smart cities, manufacturing, and logistics landscapes.
The Complexity Conundrum
Heating and cooling systems power homes, factories, and urban centers, but their evolution is outpacing traditional tools. As grids integrate multiple energy carriers—electricity, steam, CO₂, and beyond—legacy software struggles to keep up. “As heating and cooling grids become more integrated with other energy carriers, efficiently managing multiple energy sources is crucial,” says Hervé Huisman, Gradyent’s CEO and co-founder. The cost of lagging behind is steep: higher expenses, energy waste, and stalled climate progress.
Gradyent’s response is a digital twin—a virtual replica blending geographical data, weather inputs, and sensor feeds with physics-based models and AI. Operating in real time, it spans the entire grid from production to consumption, offering the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 10% and achieve operational cost and capital expenditure savings of up to 20%, according to Gradyent. For energy providers, it’s a critical edge in navigating volatile prices and rising complexity.
From Helsinki to Rotterdam: Real-World Impact
The platform’s impact is unfolding across Europe. In Helsinki, Helen—one of the continent’s largest energy firms, overseeing a 7-terawatt-hour district heating system—relies on Gradyent to enhance operations. “Maximising the opportunities for district heating is crucial to making the energy transition work,” says Timo Aaltonen, Helen’s SVP of Heating and Cooling. The twin’s real-time insights optimize demand and cut heat losses, while its offline analysis contributed to Helen’s decision to close a coal plant, resulting in up to a 40% reduction in heat production emissions in Helsinki—a significant step forward.
In Poland, Veolia is deploying Gradyent’s technology to modernize district heating in Łódź and Poznań. “The Digital Twin enables us to achieve a higher level of optimisation by leveraging existing data,” says Luiz Hanania, CEO and Country Director of Veolia in Poland. By integrating heat demand, weather forecasts, and electricity pricing, it sharpens daily operations, advancing Poland’s climate goals and supporting the shift to “4G district heating”—a data-driven evolution of urban energy systems.
Meanwhile, Shell is piloting the platform for its steam grid at the Energy and Chemicals Park in Rotterdam, aligning with its net-zero scope 1 and 2 emissions target by 2050. From municipal networks to industrial powerhouses, Gradyent’s reach underscores its adaptability, stitching data into actionable outcomes.
The Flexibility Imperative
The need for such tools is accelerating. Analysts forecast a sharp increase in demand for flexible energy assets like e-boilers, heat pumps, and combined heat and power units by 2030, driven by the push for sector coupling across heating, cooling, and electricity grids. “Heating and cooling grids are decarbonising at record speed,” says Mikko Huumo, Investment Manager at SEB Greentech Venture Capital. “Energy companies are replacing CO2-emitting heating units with diverse electrified assets, heat sources, and storage solutions, making optimisation more complex than ever before.”
Gradyent’s platform meets this moment. It calculates heat costs in real time, crafts optimized production plans, and simulates future scenarios—capabilities that could stabilize grids amid price swings and regulatory shifts. For logistics hubs dependent on industrial heating or smart buildings chasing efficiency, it offers a framework for resilience in a volatile energy landscape.
A Blueprint for Global Systems
With partnerships in over 35 European cities—including Veolia, Uniper, and Gasunie’s WarmtelinQ—Gradyent is crafting a model with global potential. The Series B funds will enhance its platform, expand its 120-strong team of energy experts and data scientists, and fuel growth into new markets. “Gradyent has quickly established itself as a leader in optimising and transforming heating grids,” says Claude Kamga, Director of Private Equity at Blue Earth Capital. “These are important contributions to help drive the global energy transition toward flexible, integrated energy systems.”
The technology’s implications ripple across verticals. In manufacturing, where steam and heat are critical, or urban development, where smart cities crave integration, Gradyent’s approach shines. Conceptually, the platform could support use cases such as a factory preempting equipment failures or city planners simulating smart building integrations—though these remain theoretical extensions. Its fusion of IoT data and 5G/6G potential positions it as a keystone for next-gen infrastructure.
Scaling isn’t without obstacles. Seamless data integration across diverse systems is a persistent challenge, and in less-digitized markets, the availability of real-time, high-quality data could present adoption hurdles. Cybersecurity also looms as a concern, as highlighted in broader industry discussions around real-time digital twin deployments for critical infrastructure—such systems demand robust protections to safeguard their integrity.
The Bigger Picture
Gradyent’s ascent reflects a broader shift in the energy transition. As emissions targets tighten and enterprises balance sustainability with viability, tools like this become essential. Its ability to decarbonize without disrupting service embodies a pragmatic vision: progress can be seamless. “By enabling companies to coordinate generation and distribution across carriers while making cost-optimal decisions, we drive greater flexibility,” Huisman says. That adaptability could influence broader paradigms in energy planning and grid management.
For now, Gradyent remains a European pacesetter, but its framework has universal echoes. If it scales successfully, it won’t just optimize grids—it’ll reshape how industries and cities harness energy in a warming world. In an era demanding both innovation and execution, that’s a narrative with staying power.virtual heartbeat syncing data with decisions. It’s a quiet revolution, proving that even the oldest industries can pivot toward a smarter, more connected future. In an era of global flux, that’s a story worth watching.
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