These founders saw a fire and built a company to prevent others

In 2018, California experienced its most destructive wildfire. The cause was a poorly maintained electrical transmission line. The founders of what is now AiDash balked at the destruction and were drawn to satellite images of its extent. They wondered what information satellite images could provide to find the cause of the fire, or even prevent it in the future. At the same time, they found that AI and satellite imagery had become mainstream and trusted technologies that continued to accelerate. In 2019, serial entrepreneurs Abhishek Singh and Rahul Saxena got to work and roped in Nitin Das to launch AiDash.

Utilities spent approximately $25 billion on vegetation management globally in 2022, and are expected to reach nearly $40 billion by 2029. It is “the largest single item in annual operations and maintenance budgets,” Abhishek said. The scale and urgency of the problem meant they had their first paying customer within weeks.

Their tools reduce friction around a seemingly simple problem that affects every aspect of the organization. “We provide complete business applications focused on solving a real business problem, not scientific projects. »

Potential customers are finding that the cost of pruning vegetation is increasing faster than their budget. Everyone knows how quickly costs have escalated, and this is no different, with the average price to cut a kilometer of line increasing by 100% in the last ten years. Vegetation also doesn't grow in a predictable way, as anyone disappointed with their vegetable garden knows. This means that companies spend their budgets inefficiently by reducing expenses on a set schedule or spend money by observing and verifying risks. That's where AiDash comes in. Their systems use satellite imagery and AI-driven forecasts to assess the condition of vegetation along an electric utility's rights-of-way. The results are a prioritization and recommendation of vegetation problems. Prioritization is essential because deploying budgets as efficiently as possible further reduces real risks.

This work has become more crucial due to increasing energy demand due to widespread electrification and growing demand sources like AI. Key stakeholders understand the need to increase U.S. energy transportation and distribution by a factor of 3 to meet emissions targets. “Governments – federal, state and local – clearly recognize the need to modernize the grid,” Abhishek said.

Grid reliability is even more critical as everything is electrified, as more and more households rely on electricity for all their basic needs. “Weather-related power outages due to falling trees have become a norm in the United States and elsewhere. Trees are the leading cause of power outages, causing more than 70% of system outages,” Abhishek said. These tailwinds are one of the reasons why AiDash recently closed an oversubscribed Series C funding round at $58.5 million. The funds will be used to double their team to more than 600 employees in two years and to set up a European headquarters. This is a great example of solving a specific problem and macroeconomic tailwinds that allowed Abhishek and his team to build a massive business.