Israeli underground mapping company Exodigo has completed a $75 million financing round. The company was set up by graduates of IDF units like 8200 and 81 who like so many entrepreneurs gained knowhow in solving critical problems in security, like discovering tunnels, as well as in medicine and construction, during their military service.
The entrepreneurs behind the company are CEO Jeremy Suard, CTO Ido Gonen, CBO Aurelia Setton, COO Tamir Cohen, VP R&D Oriel Halvani, VP product operations Ofri Lehmann, and VP software engineering Arie Abramovici. The company's list of achievements include winning the Israel Defense Prize, the Chief of Staff's Technology Prize, the State President's Prize for Excellence and the Head of Military Intelligence's Prize - all for the importance of their work for Israel's Defense Ministry.
Exodigo has developed a platform for underground mapping usually up to a depth of several meters. The company serves dozens of residential, office and infrastructure construction companies as public transport and road construction companies, and companies in the electricity and energy sector. The technology aims to locate everything underground that could complicate construction, and remove obstacles that can be found before work begins.
Exodigo has developed sensors that connect to a drone, backpack or trailer located in the field. The data gathered is put into an online system, also developed by the company, with existing information such as satellite photographs, maps or plans available in the local authorities, and analyzed using the technology developed by the company. Exodigo's platform collects over 500 gigabytes of data per scanned thousand square meters and develops the algorithm to more accurately identify and classify unknown underground infrastructures, hazards and anomalies.
Exodigo customers, including AECOM, Colas Rail, GRDF, HNTB, Houston METRO, HS2, Israel Electric Corporation, LA Metro, National Grid, PG&E, SEPTA, Tel Aviv Metro and VINCI, can now accelerate and de-risk their entire project lifecycle - avoiding unneeded emissions, risks, delays and budget overruns.
Among the obstacles Exodigo helps locate and remove before construction are high or medium voltage lines, gas pipes, in addition to archaeological findings, such as caves and burial shafts. "Locating a power line during construction can be expensive for the developer," Suard tells "Globes." "Obtaining the necessary approvals may delay construction for many months, while the payment to the contractor has to be made in any case, so more accurate mapping and locating underground obstacles before construction can save a lot of time and money for all parties." In the future, Exodigo hopes to expand into the field of locating minerals.
The pricing is calculated according to every 1,000 square meters of scanning. This is unlike traditional methods for locating infrastructures that have been accepted in the industry for many years, by which suppliers price work according to the length of the infrastructures they locate and not according to the value that the supplier brought to the project. Suard explains that the old pricing method in the industry leads to the loss of many infrastructures and hazards, instead of incentivizing the supplier to give the customer all the information required to "solve the area", thus allowing the project to move forward.
The company does not disclose revenue, but its annual revenue rate is estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars, with an annual growth rate that triples every year. The company believes it will reach profitability in two to three years.
Most of the company's employees have a defense background in elite IDF military units with 60 of the company's 120 employees having served in the reserves during the war. One of them, Amit Shahar, who served in the Yahalom engineering unit, was killed in Gaza in January.
Exodigo also converted $30 million previously secured in SAFEs, for a total of $118 million in funding since its launch in 2022. The Series A financing round was coled by Greenfield Partners and existing investor Zeev Ventures with participation from existing investors SquarePeg, 10D VC, JIBE and National Grid Partners.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 28, 2024.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2024.