AI & Models
Applied Computing raises $20m for heavy industry AI
London-based Applied Computing raised a $20 million Series A led by KBR, with Databricks Ventures participating, to scale its foundation AI model for the oil and gas sector.
Applied Computing, a London-based startup, has raised a $20 million Series A led by KBR, the US engineering giant, with Databricks Ventures, the investment arm of data platform Databricks, also participating. The funding will support scaling of Orbital, the company’s foundation AI model built for the oil, gas, and petrochemical industry.
Industrial facilities make operating decisions using less than 8% of the data available to them, according to Applied Computing co-founder and CEO Callum Adamson. Orbital combines a time series model, a physics-based model, and a language model to predict the state of a facility, drawing on sensor readings, engineering documentation, and physics and chemistry. As Adamson described the challenge, “It’s getting those three data sources to talk to each other in real time. That’s the real key.” The company says Orbital can flag anomalies, investigate what caused them, and model whether a proposed fix could create problems elsewhere in the facility, all within minutes — and Adamson says the product can compress investigations that previously took days or weeks into seconds.
Founded in 2023, Applied Computing has gone from stealth to double-digit millions in annual recurring revenue in under 18 months, according to the company. Adamson says Orbital is in use at some large, publicly listed upstream oil and gas, downstream refining, and petrochemicals companies. Its partners include KBR, which has integrated Orbital into its INSITE 3.0 digital platform, and Wipro, the Indian energy company.
To support its international growth, the startup has opened an office in Houston, in addition to its headquarters in London and operational hub in Bengaluru, putting it closer to two existing customers in North America. Adamson says Applied Computing is working with a major U.S. upstream operator and plans to announce a partnership with a European oil major in the coming weeks, while an expansion into the Middle East is also in the works.
Why it matters
Applied Computing has secured $20 million to scale Orbital, its foundation AI model, which aims to address the data fragmentation problem in the oil, gas, and petrochemical industries by predicting facility states in real time.