On Tuesday, infrastructure AI startup Urbint announced that it has successfully raised a $60 million Series C venture round, led by global alternative investment manager Energize Ventures, an energy tech-focused firm backed by institutional LPs including Canada’s CDPQ. New investors aboard for the Series C included American Electric Power and OGCI Climate Investments, while existing investors Energy Impact Partners, National Grid Partners, Blue Bear Capital and Salesforce Ventures re-upped their commitments for the round. This latest investment brings Urbint’s total funding to $109 million.
Urbint says it will use the new funds to scale its technology and introduce new solutions to meet rising and anticipated demand for its worker injury and equipment failure prevention technology following the U.S. Congress‘s expected passage of a historic, $1 trillion infrastructure spending bill.
“America’s infrastructure is at an inflection point. As we’ve seen time and again, mounting threats from climate change to an aging grid have made the risk of major safety incidents unmanageable,” Urbint Founder and CEO Corey Capasso said in announcing the round. “Our technology equips the nation’s energy and infrastructure companies with AI to prevent everything from fires, outages, and explosions to tragic worker accidents. This new investment will fuel our expansion to meet this unprecedented moment.”
“Today’s critical infrastructure owners and operators are facing new challenges as aging assets and climate change threats create a more complex operating environment,” said Tyler Lancaster, Principal at Energize Ventures, which led the funding round. “Electric utilities in the U.S. alone spend more than $15 billion annually on operations and maintenance. Urbint’s next-generation risk management software helps customers identify and prioritize safety and reliability threats, in turn lowering O&M costs, reducing emissions, and improving worker safety – all while ensuring critical infrastructure stays online.”
“By protecting critical infrastructure, Urbint’s technology prevented methane emissions equivalent to over 60,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2020 alone,” said OGCI Climate Investments CEO Pratima Rangarajan. “We look forward to accelerating Urbint’s climate impact by supporting their growth into new markets around the world.”
In June, Urbint announced with Michigan public utility SEMCO ENERGY‘s gas subsidiary that its technology was being deployed across SEMCO’s Michigan service area to predict the risk of damages to underground infrastructure from excavation activity.
