Cloverleaf: The AI Data Center Infrastructure Startup That Raised $300M Brokering Land and Power Deals

Cloverleaf, a startup co-founded by former Microsoft executive Brian Janous, has raised $300 million to build infrastructure that packages electricity access and land for AI companies building new data centers, the New York Times reported on March 5, 2026. The company strikes deals with utility companies and secures land parcels, then sells turnkey infrastructure packages to hyperscalers and AI infrastructure companies, acting as a modern-day intermediary in the AI buildout supply chain. Cloverleaf's emergence highlights how critical non-compute infrastructure — power sourcing and land permitting — has become a bottleneck in AI data center expansion.

Key Takeaways

• Cloverleaf has raised $300M and is led by Brian Janous, former VP of Energy at Microsoft; company brokers utility deals and land for AI data center construction
• Business model: Cloverleaf acquires power purchase agreements and land, packages them as turnkey infrastructure, and sells to AI companies seeking predictable data center site provisioning
• Reflects the growing bottleneck in AI expansion: GPU supply has loosened but power capacity and permitted land are now the binding constraint for new data center deployment

Original source: New York Times