Neara, an AI-based predictive modeling software platform for critical infrastructure, announced a $31 million Series C funding round. The funding round was anchored by a consortium led by EQT, with participation from Partners Group (one of the largest firms in the global private markets industry1) and Square Peg Capital (one of the company’s earliest investors), with additional support from existing investors Skip Capital and Prosus Ventures.
This funding will accelerate Neara’s global operations across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia Pacific as the company continues to address the increasing challenges of energy resilience and infrastructure modernization.
With operations across four continents, Neara’s 3D digital modeling technology enables utilities to adopt a more proactive approach to network optimization with simulations that surface safety and reliability risks and identify the most effective remediation actions.
Neara’s utility partners, including CenterPoint Energy and Southern California Edison in the US, perform critical analyses in hours and days that would otherwise take months or years. These analyses enable utilities to execute faster, more informed decisions about a wide range of issues, from routine operations and load growth planning to emergency scenarios and double and triple-digit million-dollar grid hardening choices without the need for verification from manual surveys.
CenterPoint Energy has partnered with Neara following 2024’s Hurricane Beryl to forecast, measure, and deliver network improvements as part of a goal to build the most resilient coastal grid in the country. Already, CenterPoint has dramatically accelerated critical field insight analysis, reducing processes that historically took a year and a half to just three hours in Neara.
With global energy challenges intensifying, the public sector increasingly recognizes the role of technology in driving data-informed decisions and aligning public and private stakeholders behind the most critical projects to ensure timely funding and execution. And Neara’s network-wide simulations help utilities gain regulatory support by objectively demonstrating how proposed upgrades, such as wind-resistant poles and flood-resilient network design, will improve reliability and resiliency. Neara’s software helps utilities reduce outages, accelerate power restoration, and bring new infrastructure online much faster.
The company’s technology also plays a major role in the energy transition by significantly simplifying the traditionally complex challenges of transmission design and construction hurdles. And the simulation functionality also empowers utilities to optimize the utilization of existing infrastructure, accelerating the integration of renewable energy sources.
This funding builds on Neara’s last funding round in September 2023. Since then, the TIME 100 Most Influential Companies honoree has focused on scaling its presence in the United States and Europe. Globally, Neara has modeled over 1.5 million square miles of electricity infrastructure and 12 million infrastructure assets.
This funding round will accelerate Neara’s global operations as utilities worldwide face increasing resiliency challenges and energy transition demands. And the company will also expand its modeling and simulation capabilities to additional critical infrastructure sectors, including telecommunications and public transportation. Neara supports broadband infrastructure projects in the US, helping providers fast-track efforts to connect underserved communities.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are asking the grid to do more in the next 10 years than we have in the last 50. Neara helps strengthen critical infrastructure to keep global communities safe, connected, and economically viable despite intensifying severe weather, age, and overuse. Reliable, affordable, clean energy depends on resilient high-functioning infrastructure, which demands the laser-focused, fast decision-making we’re empowering for utilities.”
– Jack Curtis, Chief Commercial Officer at Neara
“This investment marks EQT’s first venture growth investment in an Australia-headquartered company, highlighting our ambition to support world-class platforms from early growth partnerships through to large-cap buyouts. We are excited to further advance Neara’s growth and impact by leveraging our global network and expertise across energy transition, infrastructure augmentation and best-in-class software development.”
– Frank Heckes, Partner on the EQT Private Equity advisory team and Co-Head of EQT Private Capital Australia and New Zealand
“EQT is focused on making responsible investments that address global challenges and drive innovation for a better future. Neara exemplifies this by empowering mission-critical service providers to enhance infrastructure reliability and efficiency, unlocking bottlenecks, and accelerating energy transition in key markets.”
– Sam Franklin, Managing Director on the EQT Infrastructure advisory team
“In many cases, infrastructure is lagging behind rapidly changing societal needs, including across the energy grid, transportation, and digital infrastructure. As a result, it’s never been more important that every dollar invested in infrastructure demonstrably improves performance. Neara’s industry-leading technology is essential for every asset owner to run high-functioning and resilient infrastructure. We have deep thematic conviction in Neara’s offering and we are already working with management on multiple opportunities to deploy its solutions within Partners Group’s global network.”
– Cyrus Driver, Managing Director at Partners Group
“For most of us, infrastructure is invisible until there is a problem, but then it can be a matter of life and death. With infrastructure under pressure like never before, Neara’s unique ability to help intelligently and cost-effectively manage these critical assets could not be more important. At Square Peg, we concentrate our investments around a small number of outlier teams attacking critical, global problems, and we’re proud to be continuing to back Neara almost four years into our journey with them.”
– James Tynan, Partner at Square Peg
