Canadian machine learning startup CruxOCM raises $6m venture financing to accelerate growth

Canadian machine learning startup CruxOCM raises $6m venture financing to accelerate growth

Published: 15-09-2021 16:31:00 | By: Pie Kamau | hits: 3625 | Tags:

CruxOCM, the pioneer of robotic industrial process automation (RIPA) for control room operations, announced it has raised $6 million in venture financing to fuel growth.

Early customers are on track to uncover hundreds of millions in additional revenue through deployment of CruxOCM's initial product line, pipeBOT. The recent round was led by Bullpen Capital, with participation from Angular Ventures, Root Ventures, Golden Ventures, Cendana Capital and Industry Ventures. The capital will be used to grow the company's product lines, increase the efficiency of its installation process, and continue expanding its team across North America.

CruxOCM's total funding to date is $9 million, building off of a venture round of $2.6 million in 2019 co-led by Angular Ventures and Root Ventures. CruxOCM has proven a strong product market fit over the last three years and is on track to provide more control room operators with the best tools available to perform their jobs safely and efficiently.

The company's software is also instrumental in helping companies to minimize environmental impact and maximize bottom-line revenue via increased asset utilization and throughput. CruxOCM will also use the additional capital to bolster installations so that it can expand across client asset bases faster and begin pursuing additional product lines into gas plants, gas pipelines and offshore facilities.

Vicki Knott, Co-founder and CEO, CruxOCM: "We're excited to access capital from this group of deep tech, industry-leading venture firms to bring our technology to more control rooms in the energy sector. Control rooms are the brains, heart, and soul of the energy sector and they are in dire need of innovation. Our mission to give control room operators superpowers will ensure the efficiency and safety of an essential infrastructure we rely on daily."

RIPA is the foundational technology on which CruxOCM automation solutions gatherBOT and pipeBOT are built. CruxOCM works with companies ranging in size from $17 billion to $77 billion market capital, to improve efficiency and safety across the control room through automation. RIPA enables up to 99% reduction in human factors so control room operators can increase their productivity throughout the day.

Eric Wiesen, Managing Partner, Bullpen Capital: "CruxOCM's RIPA is a game-changer in the industry and we're thrilled to be a part of this next growth stage. RIPA is crucial for bringing increased efficiency into existing heavy industry control room infrastructure while maintaining safety. Even as we prioritize green energy initiatives globally, oil and gas will still be instrumental in the energy transition so we must use technology to automate where we can while helping companies to augment metrics in order to hit ESG goals."

Gil Dibner, Partner, Angular Ventures: "It's exciting to see the benefits of software automation and intelligent process control reach further and further into traditional heavy industries, which have so far been slower to adopt some of these advanced technologies. CruxOCM is at the forefront of leveraging the power of intelligent robotic automation to drive massive efficiency gains in the oil & gas industry- something that has profoundly positive safety and environmental implications as well."

CruxOCM has experienced rapid growth in the last two years. Since its initial funding in 2019, the company has proven that its software can increase revenue and safety of operations in a production environment on critical energy infrastructure. Early customers are among North America and the world's leading energy giants and are rapidly expanding pipeBOT deployments.

These early customers are also accelerating additional product offerings from  Crux's roadmap to bring RIPA to other verticals in their businesses. Among the products that early customers have fast tracked are powerOPT and draOPT, further decreasing costs of operation through intelligent automation for their critical infrastructure.

www.cruxocm.com