NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Aren—the leading civil infrastructure management Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform—today announced its seed capital raise of $2 million, aimed at growing its engineering and product teams as the company scales. The round was led by Shadow Ventures, with Rho Capital Partners, MetaProp, Technion Angels, Green Egg Ventures, HBS Alumni Angels, Turf Advisory, COINS, and Maccabee Ventures as major participants. A healthy and safe infrastructure, including a community's bridges, dams, and more, is critical for improving each and every individual's quality of life, also ensuring local and national economics can flourish. Preserving infrastructure is the core foundation of Aren.
"We are on a journey to change the global landscape of civil infrastructure by developing cutting-edge technology to optimize trillions of dollars of civil infrastructure spending, and minimize civil infrastructure failure risk," said Ali Khaloo, CEO and Co-Founder, Aren. "Having frequent civil infrastructure failures in the 21st century is truly unacceptable. By providing high-tech solutions, we are augmenting the process to give engineers the right tools to make data-driven decisions based on our AI-powered actionable insights. We are grateful to our investors for sharing our vision & eagerness to have a strong impact that shapes the future."
In many areas, infrastructure is crumbling or in a state of disrepair, and roughly 40 percent of the $9T designated globally on an annual-basis for upkeep is wasted or otherwise spent inefficiently, according to a 2016 report by McKinsey & Company. Aren provides a solution to those inefficiencies as an end-to-end, AI-powered platform designed to assess buildings, bridges, and built environments to allow data-driven decision-making and risk management. Aren's product offers a cost-effective, automated, and quantitative approach for managing an asset's risk.
Founded by Dr. Ali Khaloo and Edgar Martinez Ceja, COO & Co-Founder, Aren, as part of the Runway Startup Postdoc Program at Cornell Tech in New York City, Aren will leverage its founders' decades of experience in high-technology research and development, along with its new tech platform, to improve one of the most conservative and least-digitized industries in the world.
"As a former civil engineer, I know the state of infrastructure in this country is dismal. We need a solution like Aren to help meet the monumental task of repairing and restoring our roads, bridges, and buildings both in the United States and internationally," shared KP Reddy, Founder & General Partner, Shadow Ventures. Aren's the perfect mix of civil engineering and the latest in machine learning technology. It is just what we need to tackle these challenges."
Aren's SaaS platform utilizes patented technology to combine artificial intelligence with civil engineering prowess to aggregate and process raw data, such as images and laser scans, to provide high-resolution visualizations of assets and their structural health. The platform is a turnkey solution that supplies asset managers with objective insights and actionable data, to make proactive decisions regarding the health and management of civil infrastructure. In effect, the platform enables the creation of fast, objective, as well as thorough engineering assessments — an incredibly valuable tool as aging infrastructure fixtures crumble globally.
About Aren
Aren is building a civil infrastructure management platform for engineering firms and asset owners to minimize the risk of failure and optimize infrastructure spending. Aren's B2B SaaS platform uniquely combines artificial intelligence and civil engineering using the company's patented technology. The platform automatically aggregates raw data from different sources such as images, video, laser scanners, and other sensors, and provides a 3D high-resolution visualization of the asset and its health through time, as well as predictive maintenance plans, capital allocation plans, and service life estimates. Aren's technology offers a cost-effective, automated, and objective approach to de-risk the inspection, assessment, and management of civil infrastructures, such as bridges, building facades, and dams.
About Shadow Ventures
Shadow Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in seed-stage technology startups bringing innovation to the built environment, with the goal of institutionalizing seed-stage investing. Shadow Ventures' current portfolio is made up of companies solving some of the most difficult problems in construction and real estate with elegant, defensible technology. Shadow Ventures is backed by a mix of strategic limited partners who represent some of the largest potential customers in the built environment. Their team of operators is dedicated to defragmenting and driving innovation in the built environment.
Media Contact
Ali Khaloo, Aren, Inc., +1 617-855-8112, [email protected]
SOURCE Aren, Inc.
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