Key facts
- Applied Computing has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by KBR.
- The startup's AI model, Orbital, combines time series, physics-based, and language models for industrial facilities.
- Orbital analyzes sensor readings, engineering documentation, and physics/chemistry to predict facility states and operational impacts.
- The company claims its model can compress investigations from days or weeks into minutes.
- Applied Computing has established partnerships with KBR and Indian energy company Wipro.
- The new funding will support international expansion, hiring, and client deployments.
Applied Computing, a London-based startup specializing in AI for the oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors, has successfully raised $20 million in a Series A funding round. The investment was spearheaded by engineering firm KBR, with additional participation from Databricks Ventures.
Founded in 2023, Applied Computing aims to address the data fragmentation challenge in industrial facilities, where operators often utilize less than 8% of available sensor data. Their proprietary AI model, Orbital, is designed to integrate diverse data sources, including sensor readings, engineering documentation, and physics and chemistry principles, to predict the state of an entire plant in real-time.
Unlike traditional large language models, Orbital combines time series, physics-based, and language models to analyze operational data. This allows it to identify anomalies, determine their causes, and simulate the potential effects of proposed solutions on other parts of the facility, all within minutes. Applied Computing claims this capability can significantly reduce investigation times from days or weeks to seconds, leading to improved energy efficiency and output maintenance.
The startup reports substantial growth, moving from stealth to achieving double-digit millions in annual recurring revenue in under 18 months. Orbital is reportedly in use by several large, publicly listed companies in the upstream oil and gas, downstream refining, and petrochemical sectors.
Applied Computing has established strategic partnerships, including with KBR, which has integrated Orbital into its INSITE 3.0 digital platform and is using it for ammonia production. The company also partners with Indian energy firm Wipro. Further collaborations with a major U.S. upstream operator and a European oil major are anticipated.
Despite facing competition from established industrial software providers like AspenTech and AVEVA, and data-focused AI startups like Cognite and Seeq, Applied Computing's CEO Callum Adamson emphasizes that their competitive advantage lies in their AI research capabilities rather than just data access. The company plans to leverage the new funding to expand internationally, bolster its research and engineering teams, and explore further deployments with energy clients. They have also opened a new office in Houston, Texas, to be closer to North American customers, with plans for Middle East expansion underway.