Sharper Shape Group Inc., a company that provides powerline inspection solutions for the utility industry, completed an $18 million Series B funding round with participation from the Michael Harvey Trust as lead investor.
The investment will support Sharper Shape’s ambition to enhance its Shaper CORE Living Digital Twin, or LDT, offering, which will deliver improved safety, efficiency, accuracy and operational cost saving to utilities through enhanced digital inspection workflow decision making and management.
“If utilities are to protect their assets while delivering power reliably, safely and sustainably to communities in the face of increasing challenges, there is little to no choice but to drive a step-change in utilities’ inspection, risk, operations and maintenance processes, and to leverage technologies that rely more on data-based asset intelligence and automation,” said Chris Beaufait, CEO of Sharper Shape.
The LDT technology will incorporate real-time updates and asset change detection into a traditional 3D digital twin model, integrating aerial, ground and third-party asset data into a single artificial intelligence and machine learning driven software platform. As the surrounding environment and the utilities’ assets change, the LDT is updated to provide transparency and allow collaboration between distributed and centralized teams to evaluate network risks, identify potential issues and prioritize vegetation maintenance and other actions to meet operational and regulatory requirements.
“I see a tremendous need not just in California but globally where Sharper Shape’s software and asset intelligence solutions are key to dealing with critical failure points that represent enterprise-wide risks and operational challenges to not just power utilities, but also to other asset managers & operators alike,” said Michael Harvey, of the Michael Harvey Trust.
The Series B funding is the latest chapter in Sharper Shape’s growth. The company is continuing to win numerous multi-million-dollar contracts with Tier 1 utilities, building upon its nine-year history of serving utility customers.
“We discovered Sharper Shape in 2016 and quickly understood that they are pushing the frontiers of electric utility digitalization,” said Andrej Srsen, chairman of the Board for Sharper Shape and CEO of Straightforward Capital. “The Series B investment builds upon the incredible work done by the team to position the company for the next phase in our growth journey.”
Sharper Shape is planning to open a new office this year in Salt Lake City, Utah, to further support customers’ deployment and use of its solutions.
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