SenSat, the UK company using artificial intelligence to unlock value in the Infrastructure industry, by using digital representations of real world locations, today announces a $10 million Series A funding round, led by Tencent, with participation from Sistema Venture Capital.
The new capital will be used to support growth, enabling SenSat to expand its London team of 30 experts by more than three-fold over the next year, focusing on data scientists, mathematicians, software developers and creative problem solvers, as well as driving continued international expansion.
SenSat creates digital representations of real world locations, otherwise known as digital twins, infusing real time data sets from a variety of sources.
James Dean, Co-Founder and CEO of SenSat said: “SenSat has a simple but profound goal: to build the third platform, an intelligent eco-system that translates the real world into a version understandable to AI.
“This technology will help us to build a more sustainable future, using the wealth of new insight to help humans make better decisions. Our plan is to first focus on perfecting our human controlled digital twin technology, so we can help to transform the way we deliver Infrastructure.”
“With Tencent we share similar ambitions about the impact of enterprise internet on laggard industries and how that can lead to us operating our world more sustainably.”
Harry Atkinson, Co-founder and Chief Data Officer of SenSat added: “Infrastructure is the only sector to have had a 0% net productivity increase since the 1960s, with a history of inefficiencies in doing business, contributing to a staggering 61% of total UK waste.
“The result is an estimated $5.2 Trillion direct economic loss per year. Knowing this, we see a huge opportunity in allowing computers and AI to analyse the real world in order to help us grow more sustainably – an area which SenSat is pioneering.”
Dr Ling Ge, Chief European Representative at Tencent Holdings, who will be joining the SenSat board, explained: “We are delighted with our investment into SenSat, which aligns well with the ambitions of Tencent’s Cloud and Smart Industries Group.
“We believe SenSat is well positioned to introduce mass digital automation to offline industries that have not yet engaged in the digital revolution; and we look forward to SenSat applying its platform to a broadening range of smart industries.”