Neara, the first AI-powered predictive modeling software platform for critical infrastructure, announced a US$31 million Series C funding round. The round was anchored by a consortium led by EQT (a leading global investment organization), with participation from Partners Group (one of the largest firms in the global private markets industry1) and Square Peg Capital (one of the company’s earliest investors), with additional support from existing investors Skip Capital and Prosus Ventures.
The funding will accelerate Neara’s global operations across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia Pacific as the company continues to address the increasing challenges of energy resilience and infrastructure modernization.
With operations across four continents, Neara’s 3D digital modeling technology enables utilities to adopt a more proactive approach to network optimization with simulations that surface safety and reliability risks and identify the most effective remediation actions. Neara’s utility partners, including CenterPoint Energy and Southern California Edison in the US, perform critical analyses in just hours and days that would otherwise take months or years. These analyses enable utilities to execute faster, more informed decisions about a wide range of issues, from routine operations and load growth planning to emergency scenarios and double and triple-digit million-dollar grid hardening decisions without the need for verification from manual surveys.
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CenterPoint Energy partnered with Neara following 2024’s Hurricane Beryl to forecast, measure, and deliver network improvements as part of their mission to build the most resilient coastal grid in the country. Already, CenterPoint has dramatically accelerated critical field insight analysis, reducing processes that historically took a year and a half to just three hours in Neara.
Southern California Edison counts on Neara’s technology to address problematic vegetation 50% faster in their wildfire-prone region.
As global energy challenges intensify, the public sector increasingly recognizes the role of technology in driving data-informed decisions and aligning public and private stakeholders behind the most critical projects to ensure timely funding and execution. Neara’s network-wide simulations help utilities gain regulatory support by objectively demonstrating how proposed upgrades, such as wind-resistant poles and flood-resilient network design, will improve reliability and resiliency. Neara’s software helps utilities significantly reduce outages, accelerate power restoration, and bring new infrastructure online much faster.
The company’s technology is also playing a central role in the energy transition by significantly simplifying the traditionally complex challenges of transmission design and construction hurdles. The simulation functionality also empowers utilities to optimize the utilization of existing infrastructure, accelerating the integration of renewable energy sources.
“We are asking the grid to do more in the next 10 years than we have in the last 50. Neara helps strengthen critical infrastructure to keep global communities safe, connected, and economically viable despite intensifying severe weather, age, and overuse. Reliable, affordable, clean energy depends on resilient high-functioning infrastructure, which demands the laser-focused, fast decision-making we’re empowering for utilities,” said Jack Curtis, Chief Commercial Officer at Neara.
SOURCE: PRNewswire