Gradyent secures €28 million to optimise and transform heating and cooling grids

Gradyent has secured €28 million in an oversubscribed growth funding round led by Blue Earth Capital, a global impact investment firm. New investor SEB Greentech Venture Capital joined the round alongside continued support from existing investors Capricorn Partners, Eneco Ventures, Helen Ventures, and Energiiq. The resources will be used to expand Gradyent’s Digital Twin Platform, grow its team, and accelerate global growth to optimise and transform more heating and cooling grids worldwide.

Providing heating and cooling for homes, buildings, and industry accounts for nearly 50% of global final energy consumption. As these systems become increasingly interconnected with multiple energy carriers, their complexity will grow significantly. Traditional software used in district and industrial heating grids are no longer sufficient to manage this level of complexity. This increases the need for digital and data-driven solutions to improve efficiency, enable smarter decision-making, and ensure reliable energy delivery.

Founded in 2019, Gradyent provides a real-time Digital Twin Platform that optimises, decarbonises, and transforms heating and cooling grids. The company has grown rapidly, tripling its revenue in just under three years.

Gradyent currently partners with leading energy providers in over 35 cities across Europe, including Veolia, Helen, Iqony, Shell, Uniper, Gasunie (WarmtelinQ), and many more.

Claude Kamga, Director, Private Equity at Blue Earth Capital, stated: “Gradyent has quickly established itself as a leader in optimising and transforming heating grids with its Digital Twin Platform, which helps reduce emissions and operational costs. These are important contributions to help drive the global energy transition toward flexible, integrated energy systems. This aligns perfectly with Blue Earth Capital’s commitment to supporting impactful, innovative solutions that can accelerate decarbonisation.”

Optimising European heating and cooling grids to lower costs and emissions

Gradyent’s real-time Digital Twin Platform enables energy providers to optimise performance, reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 10%, lower operational costs, achieve up to 20% lower CapEx, and make smarter operational and business decisions.

The Digital Twin creates a digital copy of the entire heating and cooling grid from production through distribution to end-users, combining geographical, weather, and sensor data with physics-based models and AI. It allows energy providers to optimise their systems, improve operational control, and run simulations of future situations.

The platform has already delivered tangible results. Helen, a Finnish energy company operating one of Europe's largest district heating systems (7 TWh/year), is implementing Gradyent’s Digital Twin to optimise demand management, enhance efficiency, and reduce heat losses and CO₂ emissions in real-time. Moreover, the insights provided by the Digital Twin’s offline analysis enabled Helen to close one of its coal plants, reducing total CO₂ emissions from Helsinki’s heat production by up to 40%.

Timo Aaltonen, SVP of Heating and Cooling at Helen, commented: “Maximising the opportunities for district heating is crucial to making the energy transition work. Gradyent's Digital Twin makes it possible to analyse concrete scenarios, optimise supply versus demand, identify bottlenecks, and study the embedding of new assets.”

Gradyent is also partnering with Veolia, one of Poland’s largest district heating operators, to build Digital Twins that optimise source and network operations. The partnership started in Łódź and is currently expanding to Poznań. The solution integrates heat demand, weather forecasts, and electricity pricing to help dispatchers efficiently manage daily operations, supporting Veolia’s transition towards 4G district heating.

Luiz Hanania, CEO and Country Director of Veolia in Poland, CFO for CEE, commented: “At Veolia, we are continually implementing new sustainable technologies. The Digital Twin enables us to achieve a higher level of optimisation by leveraging existing data to improve our heat production and distribution, aligning them perfectly with the actual consumption. Furthermore, we can offer competitive heat to Poles and help Poland achieve its climate goals faster.”

Similarly, Gradyent is driving transformation in industrial heating grids. Shell, for example, has partnered with Gradyent to pilot a Digital Twin for its steam grid at the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park in Rotterdam, supporting Shell’s commitment to reducing its scope 1 and 2 emissions to net zero by 2050.

Driving the shift to flexible and integrated energy systems

By 2030, the global need for flexible assets such as e-boilers, heat pumps, and combined heat and power (CHP) is expected to grow tenfold. This will require greater sector coupling across multiple energy carriers, including heating, cooling, steam, electricity, and CO₂. This shift brings increased complexity and market volatility, making real-time optimisation essential for reducing emissions, lowering costs, ensuring system resilience, and meeting customer needs.

Hervé Huisman, CEO & Co-founder of Gradyent, explained: “As heating and cooling grids become more integrated with other energy carriers, efficiently managing multiple energy sources is crucial. Gradyent’s Digital Twin Platform optimises, decarbonises, and transforms even the most complex sector-coupled energy systems. By enabling companies to coordinate generation and distribution across carriers while making cost-optimal decisions, we drive greater flexibility – helping businesses navigate this transformation, reduce emissions, and enhance long-term efficiency.”

Accelerating growth and global impact

With the new Series B funding, Gradyent will expand its Digital Twin Platform capabilities and grow its team, currently comprising over 120 energy specialists, engineers, data scientists, and top-tier consulting alumni. This investment will accelerate Gradyent’s global expansion, allowing it to support more energy providers in optimising and transforming heating and cooling grids worldwide.

Mikko Huumo, Investment Manager at SEB Greentech Venture Capital, commented: “Heating and cooling grids are decarbonising at record speed. 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 Digital Twin Platform is perfectly timed and totally unique to take advantage of volatile electricity prices to deliver affordable low-carbon heating to their customers.”