CoolIT sale signals strong pipeline for DLC orders

If there is a surprising element in the sale of CoolIT Systems, a pioneer in direct liquid cooling (DLC) for servers, it is that it did not happen sooner. The acquirer is Ecolab, a US-based industrial conglomerate, which has agreed to pay $4.75 billion in cash for the Canadian DLC specialist. Ecolab's bet is that its existing relationships in the data center industry will put CoolIT's products at an advantage by offering complete life cycle services around them. The sellers are majority stake holder KKR, a major private equity player, and Mubadala, Abu Dhabi's sovereign investment vehicle. KKR and Mubadala invested in CoolIT Systems in 2023 at a reported valuation of under $300m at the time.

The acquisition of CoolIT is the second largest deal in the liquid cooling segment, behind Eaton's purchase of Boyd Thermal in November 2025, valued at $9.5 billion (see Investments signal a heated liquid cooling race). A bout of activity in data center thermal management saw 12 transactions (major investments, mergers, acquisitions) in 2025 on the strength of global spending on AI compute, with another four in the first quarter of 2026, including this latest deal.