Omen AI, a San Francisco startup that makes sensors to monitor the fluids cooling AI data centers, has acquired Aquatic Labs, a maker of water chemistry sensors originally built for ocean research, for $16 million. Omen announced the deal on November 2, 2026, and TechCrunch reported it the same day.
The price was paid in a mix of cash and stock, according to both the release and TechCrunch; neither gave the split. The Aquatic Labs team joins Omen as part of the deal.
Allan Adams, Aquatic Labs' founder, becomes Omen's chief science officer and will lead its research and development. Omen said it expects to start shipping products with the new monitoring capabilities by the end of the year, while TechCrunch reported that the combined sensor is expected on the market early next year.
What Aquatic Labs built
Aquatic Labs, based at 614 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts, makes a solid-state sensor that measures pH, total alkalinity, conductivity and temperature in water. Unlike laboratory methods, it uses no consumable chemical reagents, according to the company's website.
The company's background is in ocean sensing, and its website describes the device as a solid-state carbon sensor. Omen said Aquatic Labs' sensors measure total alkalinity in real time without adding chemicals, and that it will combine those readings with its own elemental and biological monitoring to assess mineral buildup and corrosion risk in cooling systems.
Adams is a physicist who was a professor of physics at MIT and a visiting oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he developed ocean sensing technology, according to Omen and TechCrunch. Aquatic Labs' funding history and headcount were not disclosed.
“To automate treatment, you first need enough information to understand what is happening in the fluid,”
Why Omen AI is buying
Omen was founded in 2024 by Zach Laberge, who dropped out of high school to start an earlier company that analysed hydraulic fluid in large construction machines, TechCrunch reported. Omen's sensor watches the coolant in data centers continuously, detecting problems such as valve failures and bacterial growth that can restrict water flow, and is meant to replace lab tests that take several days. The company says it works with data centers totalling more than 10 gigawatts of capacity.
Laberge said the goal is to automate the treatment of cooling water so that its chemistry is adjusted automatically within approved limits. "To automate treatment, you first need enough information to understand what is happening in the fluid," he said in the release. "Allan and his team have spent years developing technology that helps fill in that picture."
Adams told TechCrunch that combining the two sensors gives a "much richer picture of the water and the fluid". He also pointed out that the water used to cool data centers is eventually discharged into municipal water systems. "Understanding both the chemistry and the biology is a formidable technical challenge," he said in the release.
How the deal came together
Aquatic Labs had been a competitor of sorts: TechCrunch described the deal as Omen buying a rival. An investor in the water filtration industry introduced Laberge to Adams, the publication reported.
Omen has raised $46 million in total, according to its release, including a $31 million Series A in June. Its backers include Nava Ventures, CRV, Sheryl Sandberg, HubSpot co-founder Brian Halligan, filtration company Mann+Hummel, Caffeinated Capital, Vanderbilt, Genius Ventures and LMNT Ventures, along with a group of operators from AI infrastructure companies.
Betting on the AI build-out
Omen's growth depends on the pace of data center construction. Laberge told TechCrunch that by the end of 2026 its first sensors should be monitoring chips that draw 250 to 300 megawatts of power, which he valued at about $5 billion to $7 billion of hardware. The company's goal is to be installed on the equivalent of one gigawatt of chips by the end of 2027.
Laberge said Omen is working with customers on facilities they are building now or have already built. Asked about the risk of a slowdown, he told TechCrunch that "if there's tightness, this is still going to be the biggest market in human history". The longer-term plan, according to the release, is automated treatment that adjusts coolant chemistry within approved limits rather than relying on periodic manual testing.
