AiDash Raises $50 Million to Safeguard Critical Infrastructure From Climate Change-related Threats

AiDash, an enterprise SaaS company making critical infrastructure industries climate-resilient and more sustainable with satellites and AI, today 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 Systemtm (IVMStm), which enables utilities to identify vegetation risks before they damage the grid and optimize maintenance cycles, and its Intelligent Sustainability Management Systemtm (ISMStm), an essential tool for organizations seeking to comply with the UK's mandatory Biodiversity Net Gain laws introduced under the Environment Act 2021. In addition to growing interest in the U.S. and the UK, AiDash is gaining growth momentum in Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The company has more than 150 customers worldwide and has been more than doubling its annual recurring revenue (ARR) every year since the company's inception in 2019.

"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. Our combination of satellite technology and AI is capable of managing this risk and safeguarding at-risk systems, like those managed by utility companies which often span huge geographical areas. With this funding, we look forward to expanding our reach and bringing the benefits of AiDash to more markets."

"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. "As the effects of the climate emergency grow more severe, so will the need for software solutions like AiDash that can safeguard the huge number of geographically distributed assets, enabling customers to provide reliable service to their clients, and meet their regulatory obligations while also reducing risk from extreme weather, wildfires, and habitat destruction."

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 products are redefining grid reliability and resource efficiency. Its 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: We are now approaching it with a more informed perspective. IVMS shows us the potential reliability impact across our utility. And that's important to us, because reliability drives a positive customer experience, which is one of our top priorities."

"The quality and accuracy of the AiDash habitat mapping is the best I have seen to date from remote sensing, and for the first time it is comparable with traditional ground survey mapping for Phase 1 surveys," said David Smith, Natural Water Resources Team Manager, at South West Water. "This is a paradigm shift for the future of mapping and monitoring habitats."

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) for electric utilities and others to manage vegetation risk along rights-of-way and improve grid resiliency; Intelligent Sustainability Management System (ISMS) for land and construction, water and wastewater, government agencies, and others to meet their Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and carbon goals; CRIStm, the Climate Risk Intelligence Systemtm for electric utilities and other industries to increase their climate resiliency by accurately forecasting outages caused by storms and wildfires, assessing damages quickly, restoring services safely, and communicating effectively; IEMStm, the Integrity and Encroachment Management Systemtm for gas utilities to improve reliability and safety by mitigating pipeline integrity risks like vegetation overgrowth, illegal construction, forest clearings, erosion and land use changes; and Remote Inspection and Monitoring Systemtm (RIMStm) helps industries inspect and monitor their critical infrastructure, such as roads and railroads.

Each application is powered by AiDash's satellite-first platform that uses imagery from the world's largest and best satellite data providers, 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.

To learn more about all the ways in which AiDash is supporting climate resiliency and sustainability, please visit www.aidash.com. To view all open AiDash career opportunities, please visit www.aidash.com/careers.

About AiDash

AiDash is making critical infrastructure industries climate-resilient and sustainable with satellites and AI. Using our full-stack SaaS solutions, customers in electric, gas, and water utilities, transportation, and construction are transforming asset inspection and maintenance - and complying with biodiversity net gain mandates and carbon capture goals. Our customers deliver ROI in their first year of deployment with reduced costs, improved reliability, and achieved sustainability goals. Learn more at www.aidash.com.

About Lightrock

Lightrock is a global impact investing platform that backs purpose-driven companies tackling the world's biggest challenges. Lightrock invests in companies that pursue scalable and tech-driven business models around the key impact themes of people, planet, and productivity/tech for good. Lightrock's portfolio includes more than 90 high-growth companies across Europe, US, Latin America, India, and Africa, supported by more than 105 Lightrock professionals based in 6 global offices. Lightrock is backed by LGT, the international private banking and asset management group, and other leading global institutions. For more information, please visit www.lightrock.com