Cooling the planet, one chapter at a time: Incooling shifts focus
After seven years, Eindhoven-based deep tech startup Incooling winds down operations, but its mission to solve data centre cooling lives on.
Published on June 10, 2025
Incooling founders Rudie Verweij and Helena Samodurova
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After more than seven years of pushing the boundaries of what sustainable data centre technology could look like, Eindhoven startup Incooling is closing down its operations in their current form. The announcement, made via a LinkedIn post, marks the end of a remarkable chapter for one of the region’s most promising deep tech ventures. Incooling won a Gerard & Anton Award in 2019.
“Over seven years ago, we set out with a bold vision: to cool down the planet, one server at a time,” the founders wrote. That vision, anchored in cutting-edge phase change cooling technology, was born out of the HightechXL venture building program, backed by the Eindhoven Startup Alliance, with strategic support from giants like ASML and Philips. Incooling aimed to tackle one of the tech industry’s dirtiest secrets: the massive energy demand of data centres, where cooling alone can account for over 40% of total power consumption.
In a world generating more data than ever, fueled now by the AI boom, Incooling’s mission seemed more relevant than ever. Under the leadership of Rudie Verweij and Helena Samodurova, Incooling went far beyond research. It built what it claimed to be the world’s fastest single-socket server in collaboration with AMD, earning multiple industry awards, attracting foreign investment, and partnering with players like ASML.
Slow adoption
Yet despite proven performance and growing urgency around sustainable tech, the startup faced a stubborn hurdle: slow adoption in a conservative industry. “Despite market needs, adoption remains slow due to a deeply settled legacy mindset,” the farewell post explains. The company had evolved from hardware cooling technology into a full compute server provider, but found it difficult to land enough paying clients to sustain operations.
Rather than continue as an independent company, Incooling is now choosing a new path. “We’ve made the strategic decision to close down Incooling’s operations in its current form,” the founders announced. The next step is to integrate its innovations into the portfolios of major global tech providers - those better positioned to drive systemic change.
For many team members, this marks the end of their Incooling journey. But for the technology and its purpose, it may still be just the beginning. “We continue to pursue the same mission,” the founders assure, “just in a new form.”
