AiDash announced that it received $50 million in funding, bringing the total raised to date to $83 million. The Series C round was oversubscribed, indicative of growing investor interest in proven, scalable, and effective climate technologies.
Global impact investment firm Lightrock led AiDash’s funding round, with Partner Ashish (Ash) Puri joining the company’s board of directors. SE Ventures, a global venture fund backed by Schneider Electric, also participated in the round, alongside all of AiDash’s previous investors, including G2 Venture Partners, Benhamou Global Ventures, National Grid Partners, Edison International, Shell Ventures, and additional strategic investors. Funds will be used to fuel growth as AiDash anticipates nearly doubling its team of 300 over the next two years. The company will also establish a European headquarters and continue to expand internationally to meet growing demand.
This funding round comes amid a surge in demand for AiDash’s suite of satellite-first products, including its Intelligent Vegetation Management System™ (IVMS™), which enables utilities to identify vegetation risks before they damage the grid and optimize maintenance cycles, and its Intelligent Sustainability Management System™ (ISMS™), an essential tool for organizations seeking to comply with the UK’s mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain laws introduced under the Environment Act 2021.
“Our aging infrastructure is breaking under the strain of environmental change, putting lives at risk,” said Abhishek Singh, Co-founder and CEO of AiDash. “Better tools and technologies are required to manage this growing risk and its potential future impact."
“AiDash’s full-stack software suite delivers significant ROI for customers and positive impact for companies, communities, people, and the climate,” added Ash Puri, Partner at Lightrock.
Adapting to Climate Change: Impacting the Present and the Future
Climate change is creating unprecedented risks for enterprises across sectors operating critical infrastructure. For example, climate change hazards increasingly interfere with power systems through direct effects such as storms, flooding, and wildfires. The average U.S. customer has lost power an average of over seven hours per year since 2020, with the vast majority of outages caused by extreme weather. These outages result in untold damage every year, including 2.5 TWh of electricity loss, over $150 billion of economic loss, and millions of people’s lives affected.
AiDash's technology can reduce the number of vegetation-caused power outages during storms by 15%, boost grid reliability by 5-15%, and deliver Operations & Maintenance (O&M) cost efficiencies to clients of 10-20%, creating value for customers and delivering climate impact. The company’s impact extends beyond cost-savings and includes safeguarding the environment and human lives by reducing the likelihood of wildfires caused by vegetation interfering with the safe operation of assets.
According to Kristen Bridges, Vegetation Management and Contract Services Manager at Alabama Power Company, "It’s hard to deliver condition-based vegetation management if you can’t consider the full condition of your system all at once. AiDash IVMS not only gives us that view, but also allows us to put scenarios together to envision where our vegetation management choices are taking us.
A Full Stack Solution for Critical Infrastructure Maintenance & Climate Resilience
Today, AiDash provides five different end-to-end applications with workflows designed for different use cases that immediately create business value. These include:
- Intelligent Vegetation Management System (IVMS)
- Intelligent Sustainability Management System (ISMS)
- Climate Risk Intelligence System™
- Integrity and Encroachment Management System™
- Remote Inspection and Monitoring System™ (RIMS™)
Each application is powered by AiDash’s satellite-first platform that uses imagery, combined with other data and its own AI. Its AI system has been trained on diverse vegetation and climate conditions from 48 of the 50 U.S. states. Additionally, it is capable of using detailed satellite imagery to assess the current condition of infrastructure assets and how they are likely to degrade in the future, providing a significant advantage to customers who can now address issues before they become problems
