America’s efforts to expand its industrial base for reconstructing its aging grid system got a boost this week when Infravision, a company designing aerial robots to build and maintain power lines, raised $91 million.
The Series B round, announced Monday, was led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and brought in investments from the San Francisco venture firm Activate Capital and Hitachi Ventures, the VC arm of the Japanese industrial giant.
The funding will speed up deployment of Infravision’s TX system, a fully-integrated combination of drones, sensor-equipped ground equipment, and line-stringing hardware that is already being used to expand high-voltage transmission projects across the world. The company’s latest iteration includes what it described as “helicopter-level capabilities” that — unlike the costly manned aerial vehicles — can be used every day and shipped around by truck.
The drone-based system “has been proven on some of the largest and most complex power line projects in the world,” CEO Cameron Van Der Berg said in a statement, including in Australia and in utility giant PG&E’s territory in California.
“This investment will help us scale to provide a faster, safer, and more cost-effective way to meet surging electricity demand as the world races to double grid infrastructure by 2040,” he said.
The fundraising comes as companies such as Hitachi Energy ramp up investments in U.S. manufacturing capacity for grid components. In August, as Latitude Media previously reported, the company announced plans to pump $106 million more into transformer production, more than a year after setting aside $1.5 billion to get the factories started.
It’s not just a boom in equipment production. Startups working on software to carry out dynamic line rating, such as Splight, are also raising money. Three months ago, Latitude Media broke news about the company raising $12.5 million.
