Energy Robotics, a leader in AI software for autonomous inspections using robots and drones, has successfully closed $13.5 million in Series A funding. This round was co-led by Blue Bear Capital and Climate Investment (CI), with contributions from Futury Capital, Hessen Capital, Kensho VC, and TADTech.
This funding will significantly boost the commercial deployment of Energy Robotics’ innovative software in various sectors, including energy, chemicals, industrial applications, and security.
The company has an impressive track record, having conducted over one million inspections across five continents. This achievement has led to the saving of more than 32,000 hours of hazardous labor for customers in the oil and gas, industrial, chemical, and utility sectors, including industry giants such as Shell, BP, Repsol, BASF, Merck, and E.ON. With this new funding, Energy Robotics aims to further solidify its position as a market leader by providing a comprehensive, hardware-agnostic AI software platform designed specifically for critical infrastructure.
One of the pressing challenges facing today’s infrastructure and industrial facilities is the simultaneous decrease in skilled workforce and the growing complexity of aging equipment that requires specialized maintenance. Energy Robotics has developed an AI software platform to address these challenges. This technology enables the deployment of autonomous robots and drones, reducing operational costs by up to 40% while significantly improving worker safety.
The sectors served by Energy Robotics are marked by significant operational risks, which include exposure to fires, explosions, toxic chemicals, leaks, physical hazards, and cybersecurity threats. The autonomous robots and drones, powered by the company’s platform, carry out essential tasks such as visual inspections, thermal scans, and leak detection.
This technology eliminates the need for human workers to enter potentially dangerous environments, thus securing proprietary data and maintaining safety standards. By automating these critical tasks, Energy Robotics not only enhances worker safety but also minimizes human errors and facilitates more frequent data collection. This proactive automation approach leads to improved maintenance efficiency and decreased plant downtime, resulting in greater operational reliability and productivity.
Energy Robotics offers a sophisticated AI-powered fleet orchestration software platform designed to provide seamless integration and eliminate the need for fragmented tools.
The platform features a hardware-agnostic operating system that can easily integrate with eight leading robots and drones from various original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), including Boston Dynamics, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and DJI. This flexibility allows customers to create mixed fleets without being tied to a single vendor.
The company’s advanced AI analytics library interprets a wide range of multimodal sensor data, from gauge readings to leak detection. This system continuously learns and improves with each inspection mission, enhancing its effectiveness over time. Additionally, the platform features a large language model (LLM)- driven mission control system, simplifying the process for operators to easily prompt the platform and generate and execute inspection tasks across entire fleets of robots and drones.
Energy Robotics also differentiates itself with its approach to data management. Instead of relying solely on synthetic data, the fleet orchestration and autonomous operations are grounded in millions of real-world data points collected from complex environments like refineries and power plants.
Each inspection mission automatically updates a live, evolving digital twin of facilities, which provides real-time visibility and predictive insights. These insights are integrated directly into customers’ enterprise resource planning (ERP), computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), and digital twin platforms.
Lastly, Energy Robotics prioritizes data privacy and cybersecurity. The platform is designed to keep sensitive inspection data within customer-controlled IT systems, independent of vendor-specific software solutions. This ensures stronger cybersecurity measures and greater control over data sovereignty for clients.
KEY QUOTES:
“This funding round will help us scale autonomy to serve the world’s most critical infrastructure, giving energy, chemicals, utilities, and security operators greater resilience, safety, and efficiency. As a skilled workforce retires, critical infrastructure operators face a significant demographic shift. This is compounded by the fact that many of the world’s most vital energy and chemical assets are decades old, requiring more frequent and intricate monitoring, inspection, and maintenance. This combination of an aging workforce, a shrinking talent pool, and deteriorating infrastructure creates a perfect storm of operational risk. Our platform provides a timely and scalable solution, enabling customers to not only maintain but also improve operational efficiency and safety, while actively mitigating the challenges of this workforce transition.”
Marc Dassler, CEO and co-founder of Energy Robotics
“The industrial robotics market has reached an inflection point. Energy Robotics has built an AI software platform that orchestrates diverse fleets of robots and drones, integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise workflows, and delivers actionable data services at scale today. Also, Energy Robotics delivers climate impact by using autonomous robots to spot gas leaks early, so harmful emissions are fixed before they escape into the atmosphere. This is why we are excited to co-lead their Series A investment.”
Cindi Bough, Managing Director at Climate Investment
“The global energy transition relies on a more resilient, efficient, and secure infrastructure. Energy Robotics’ autonomous inspection platform, powered by AI, directly addresses this need. It provides a scalable solution that improves the safety and operational efficiency of key energy and industrial assets, while taking advantage of the global robotics expansion.”
Dr. Carolin Funk, Partner, Blue Bear Capital
