The demand for data storage is increasing quickly. Each day, more than 330 million terabytes of new data are created, and this amount is expected to triple by 2030. As a result, traditional data centres are having a hard time managing the growing storage needs, struggling with both costs and energy consumption. Estonian startup Leil offers a solution by making hyperscale data storage affordable and energy-efficient
Using software to leverage shingled magnetic recording (SMR) hard drives, Leil’s technology stores around 20% more data per disk while reducing power consumption by up to 70%.
Today, Leil raised €1.5 million in seed funding led by Karma Ventures with participation from Specialist VC to accelerate product development, commercial growth, and market expansion.
Making advanced storage technology accessible
Leil was co-founded by Aleksandr Ragel (CEO) and Dmitrii Liautov (CTO), leveraging their deep storage and infrastructure expertise acquired through their prior company, DIAWAY. The founders share a vision to transform the data storage industry by combining reliable spinning disk technology with cutting-edge innovations to provide a greener, scalable, and affordable alternative to traditional solutions.
Gerstein told TFN, “We started Leil after years in storage engineering, seeing a simple gap: the high-density hard drives that make hyperscalers so efficient weren’t practical for everyone else. Our software handles the hard parts of SMR – sequential writes, placement and recovery — so customers can cut cost and power without hiring a storage R&D team.”
Leil’s core technology automates the complex management of SMR drives, which conventional hard drives cannot efficiently handle due to their need for sequential data writing. The company’s software classifies data, groups inactive files, and powers down unused drives to save energy while maintaining data availability.
Unlike Dropbox and Wasabi, Leil offers this with remarkable cost efficiency (starting at around $4 per terabyte per month) and environmental sustainability. Partnerships with Western Digital allow them to leverage Host-Managed SMR drives and power management technologies, further enhancing performance and energy savings.
Kristjan Laanemaa, Partner at Karma Ventures, said, “AI needs more than just compute — it needs smarter, sovereign infrastructure for storing the colossal datasets that the models rely on. Leil is solving that bottleneck.”
What’s next?
With fresh capital from its €1.5 million seed round, Leil plans to expand its product roadmap, grow its commercial team, and accelerate go-to-market efforts primarily across Europe and beyond. The company intends to broaden its reach in data-intensive sectors, including AI, healthcare, and public archives, driving adoption of its greener storage infrastructure.
“Over the next year, we’ll advance our energy-saving algorithms, complete a POC with a European supercomputing centre, and publish validated solution briefs with tier-one drive makers, while we scale commercial operations in North America and Europe,” concluded Gerstein.
