Edinburgh-based Continuum Industries raises €9.4 million Series A to transform energy infrastructure planning | EU-Startups

Continuum Industries, an AI company accelerating the global energy transition by helping infrastructure developers complete work that used to take 12 months in as little as eight weeks while minimising impact on the environment and communities, has raised €9.4 million in new funding in a Series A round led by Singular. Previous investors Credo, Playfair, Techstart Ventures, and angels including executives from UiPath, Skyscanner, and SSE also participated in the round. This latest raise will support Continuum Industries’ continued growth as it aims to double headcount and expand into new territories over the next 12 months, and brings the company’s total funding to date to $15.5 million.

The funding will enable Continuum Industries’ growth in Europe and the US, with the team set to double in size over the next year to support customers in rolling out the software across rapidly-growing portfolios of projects. Growing the engineering and product teams will also facilitate the creation of new cutting-edge functionalityto support developers across more project stages. 

Grzegorz Marecki, co-founder and CEO of Continuum Industries, said: “If we are going to deliver the energy transition required in time to meet global climate goals, we need to completely rethink worldwide energy infrastructure – transforming what we have, but also building considerably more, and doing so at an unprecedented pace. The best way to do that is to work smarter, not harder – as highlighted by the UK Electricity Networks Commissioner, automated infrastructure planning processes, such as those that we provide, have a big part to play. But the impact of technology needn’t be limited to the planning stage – we’re excited to bring its transformative power to developers throughout the development process as we continue to grow with this new funding.”

Continuum Industries’ first-of-its-kind AI-powered network and linear infrastructure development platform, Optioneer, enables power, utility, and renewables companies to visualise, analyse, and comprehensively assess routing options for power lines, onshore and offshore cables, and pipelines for hydrogen, water, and CO2. 

Founded in 2018, Continuum Industries is supporting customers in the UK, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, and the USA – including National Grid, SSEN Transmission, National Gas Transmission, Fred. Olsen Seawind, and Iberdola Group – with the assessment of thousands of kilometres of assets across large-scale projects. 

Henri Tilloy, Partner at Singular, commented: “Infrastructure is a vital, but under-discussed, aspect of the energy transition. Without robust, future-fit infrastructure to transport the growing amount of energy and utilities we need – especially as renewables come online in larger and larger volumes – all the innovation that goes into new generation and storage solutions will be wasted. Grzegorz and the team at Continuum have built impressive technology and are already working with some significant names to enable infrastructure to be delivered at a pace that matches the urgency of the situation.”

Demand for energy and utility infrastructure is growing all the time – electricity grids alone are projected to double in size by 2050 to connect critical renewable energy sources – but the planning process is complex and the current pace of development is too slow to meet net zero targets. Companies must balance a multitude of technical and regulatory considerations, design and planning rules, project-specific environmental, social, technical, and financial considerations, and the competing perspectives and priorities of different stakeholders. The challenge is compounded by a reliance on decades-old technology that is not fit for purpose today.

Optioneer provides a common environment for engineers and environmental specialists to collaborate using AI to condense processes that previously took 12 months into just eight weeks. The combination of vast computing power, geospatial data, and human intuition unlocks unique insights throughout projects, from conception to completion. This includes generating a shortlist of viable routing options from millions of alternatives in just a matter of hours, real-time iteration of designs as new data arises, recording key decisions, and mitigating against unforeseen delays at later stages.

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• Source: https://www.eu-startups.com/2023/09/edinburgh-based-continuum-industries-raises-e9-4-million-series-a-to-transform-energy-infrastructure-planning/