BrightAI Inc., a startup that helps businesses more efficiently manage physical assets such as factory equipment, announced today that it has raised $15 million in seed funding.

Capital was provided by Upfront Ventures.

BrightAI was launched in 2019 by CEO Alex Hawkinson, who previously co-founded smart home software provider SmartThings. The latter company became part of Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. through an acquisition in 2014. Like SmartThings, BrightAI provides a set of software tools designed to make device management tasks easier, but it focuses on enterprise use cases rather than the consumer segment. consumers.

“SmartThings has focused on connecting millions of homes, while BrightAI focuses outside of homes, solving our critical infrastructure that human civilization relies on, from the water we drink to the energy that we consume,” Hawkinson said.

The core component of BrightAI’s product portfolio is a cloud-based artificial intelligence platform. It runs multi-modal AI models capable of processing data from sensors deployed in industrial facilities, on employee devices and other sources. The models analyze the collected information to help businesses find ways to streamline their daily operations.

Detecting equipment failures is one of the tasks that BrightAI promises to make easier with its platform. According to the company, its AI models can detect technical problems in systems such as industrial HVAC units before they are noticed by customers. This allows technicians to start the troubleshooting process earlier and thus reduce the impact of the malfunction on end users.

BrightAI says its platform is also used in the manufacturing sector. According to the company, factory operators can collect data from the computers that coordinate their production equipment to find ways to improve efficiency. Utilities, in turn, can leverage BrightAI’s software to more quickly analyze information collected during infrastructure inspections.

To help businesses use its platform, the company sells a collection of complementary hardware products. BrightAI offers cameras, sensors and computing modules that it calls AI edge hubs. These latest devices provide up to 30 teraflops of processing capacity to power machine learning applications.

BrightAI says it has deployed more than 250,000 sensors for its customers to date, while its cutting-edge AI hubs operate across thousands of locations. The company’s products have so far been adopted by six major companies in asset-heavy industries such as the HVAC and utility segments. Brilliant AI would have generates more than $80 million in annual revenue from these customers.

The funding round announced today will allow the company to improve its product portfolio and acquire more customers.

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