New York, NY · Founded 2020
The company that treats wasted electricity as an asset - building power-first data centers that run only when energy is cheap and switch off when the grid needs it back.
DPO — an energy services firm siting flexible bitcoin & AI compute next to underused renewable power. Photographed: the company wordmark.
from power that would otherwise have little demand
closed February 2022
lean, finance-native operators
in New York City
The Big Idea
Most of the energy conversation right now runs one direction: data centers are hungry, the grid is strained, and something has to give. Digital Power Optimization - DPO to the people who work with it - starts from the opposite premise. A surprising amount of renewable electricity never gets used. When the wind blows hard at 3 a.m. or a hydro dam spills more than the local grid can absorb, prices sag, sometimes below zero, and generators curtail. That wasted power is the raw material of DPO's business.
The company builds and operates power-first flexible data centers directly at renewable power plants. The machines - bitcoin miners, and increasingly AI and high-performance compute - switch on when electricity is curtailed, wasted, or undervalued, and power down with no efficiency penalty during peak demand, so the generator can sell that same electricity back to the grid at a premium. DPO says the arrangement lets a power owner capture more than $100 per megawatt-hour from electricity that would otherwise go begging.
How It Works
DPO handles the whole stack - asset analysis, engineering and construction, server sourcing, and day-to-day operations - so the power producer doesn't have to become a data center company.
DPO analyzes a renewable asset - often a hydro dam or wind farm - to map when and how much of its output is curtailed, wasted, or sold at a loss.
A customized, modular data center is installed behind the meter. It converts otherwise-wasted power into revenue at a reported rate north of $80/MWh when it runs.
When the grid needs the electricity, the load curtails within moments. Power flows back to the grid; the producer sells high. Everyone's incentive points the same way.
Teal = compute running on surplus power | Hatched = load curtailed, power sold to grid
Schematic for illustration - not actual plant data.
Who's Behind It
DPO was founded in 2020 by Andrew Webber (Founder & CEO) and Alex Stoewer (Co-Founder & COO). Webber spent roughly a dozen years in finance before this - banking at Goldman Sachs, equity investing at Surveyor Capital and Steadfast Financial, and credit investing at Fortress Investment Group. That background shows in how DPO frames itself: less a crypto miner chasing the cheapest kilowatt, more a financial partner helping power owners squeeze new revenue from assets they already own.
It's a deliberate positioning. DPO describes itself as an ally to the energy sector rather than an adversary - a data center operator whose interests are aligned with the plant next door, not opposed to it.
An energy services provider that acts as an ally to the energy sector.
Products & Services
DPO builds and runs the on-site data center itself - asset analysis, EPC, server sourcing, and operations - converting surplus power to dollars and curtailing on peak.
For producers not ready to vertically integrate, DPO builds and operates its own data center on their site and pays above market rate for undervalued power.
Deal structuring, due diligence, investor reporting, ASIC/GPU financing oversight, cash-flow modeling and capital sourcing for producers weighing their options.
The Business Model
The most telling detail in DPO's model is when it gets paid. Rather than charging upfront, the company typically collects fees only after operational cash flow begins - tying its own compensation to the revenue the data center actually generates for the client. Revenue comes from computing output (bitcoin hashprice, AI compute) and services fees.
Who it serves: renewable power asset owners - primarily hydroelectric plants and wind farms - along with family offices and investors in underused generation, plus bitcoin miners and, increasingly, AI compute customers. It's a small, project-based client base run by a five-person team operating megawatt-scale deployments across the U.S.
Where It Fits
DPO sits at the intersection of three fast-moving worlds - renewable energy, bitcoin mining, and AI infrastructure - and its edge is siting, not scale.
Companies like Crusoe Energy, Soluna, Lancium and Applied Digital all chase flexible or behind-the-meter compute. DPO's distinction is philosophical and structural: it builds where the power is, not where the fiber is, and it aligns with the generator's economics instead of just hunting the lowest price. Its performance-based fees and "ally, not adversary" stance are designed to make power owners partners rather than counterparties.
As AI drives an unprecedented surge in data center demand, the industry's central constraint has shifted from chips to electricity. DPO's thesis - that the smartest place to put compute is next to power going to waste - has moved from a niche bitcoin idea to a live question for the whole AI buildout. Its 2024-2025 pivot toward wind- and hydro-powered AI data centers reflects exactly that shift.
~$3.04M total raised
Financing, hardware & power
The Story So Far
Andrew Webber and Alex Stoewer launch the company to monetize stranded and undervalued renewable power.
The round - with Wakestream Ventures, NBDR Ventures and Luxor - funds expansion of flexible data centers.
Bloomberg, The Economist and S&P Global cover DPO's repowered 6-MW hydro-powered bitcoin mine near Lake Arbutus.
DPO executes a bitcoin-denominated hashprice contract with Luxor and partners with Sustainable Bitcoin Protocol.
DPO teams with Schneider Electric on modular AI data centers and signs a behind-the-meter wind PPA for a 100MW project.
DPO launches a large AI project, marking its expansion from bitcoin into high-performance AI compute.
In The Press
The Economist
The magazine spotlighted DPO's Wisconsin deployment as a new model for pairing crypto with clean power.
Jun 2022Bloomberg
Bloomberg covered DPO's move to tap a Wisconsin hydro plant for flexible bitcoin mining.
Mar 2022S&P Global
S&P highlighted the grid-balancing role of DPO's curtailable loads across podcasts and interviews.
2023-2025Watch & Listen
Andrew Webber and the DPO team have appeared across energy and crypto media. Search these to dig in.
Good To Know
It builds and operates flexible, on-site data centers at renewable power plants that run bitcoin mining or AI compute only when electricity is curtailed, wasted or undervalued, and power down during peak demand so the generator can sell power to the grid.
Andrew Webber (Founder & CEO) and Alex Stoewer (Co-Founder & COO) founded the company in 2020 in New York. Webber previously spent over a decade at Goldman Sachs, Fortress, Surveyor Capital and Steadfast.
By consuming otherwise-wasted power, DPO helps producers capture over $100/MWh from electricity that would have little demand - either through a co-located data center it operates or a flexible power purchase agreement - and it typically collects fees only after operational cash flow begins.
DPO closed a $2.5M Series A round in February 2022 led by bitcoin company NYDIG, with participation from Wakestream Ventures, NBDR Ventures and Luxor Technologies. Reported total funding is around $3.04M.
No. While it started with hydro-powered bitcoin mining, DPO has expanded into AI and high-performance computing, including a ~$200M AI data center with Billerud and wind-powered modular AI data centers with Schneider Electric.