Ottawa-based Giatec, which provides concrete testing technologies, has secured a $5 million CAD investment from BDC Capital’s Cleantech Practice.
Giatec announced the financing last week, months after HeidelbergCement made a minority investment in the company in May. The funding amount for that investment was not disclosed.
In previous funding, Giatec received a cumulative $6.2 million investment from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) last year. In 2018, Giatec also secured $2.4 million from SDTC and $800,000 in financing from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program.
A spokesperson for Giatec told BetaKit that the company has raised $25 million in total funding to date, spanning both private and government funding. They declined to disclose the breakdown of Giatec’s various investors and financing rounds beyond what has already been made public.
Founded in 2010 by civil engineering Ph.D. graduates Pouria Ghods (CEO) and Aali Alizadeh (CTO), Giatec combines wireless concrete sensors and mobile apps to develop Internet-of-Things-based technologies for real-time monitoring of concrete properties such as temperature, humidity, and strength. According to the startup, these metrics allow contractors to make informed decisions to cut down on costs and time.
Giatec also offers non-destructive testing technologies for the durability-based performance analysis of concrete materials and the condition assessment of infrastructure.
The Ottawa startup has attracted a global client base, made up of leading construction firms such as AECOM, Concor, Skanska, JE Dunn Construction, PCL Construction, McCarthy, DPR Construction, and Lendlease, among others.
In 2018, Giatec appointed Paul Loucks as its new CEO. Loucks was formerly CEO of Halogen, which develops talent management software solutions. When Loucks took over, Ghods and Alizadeh assumed roles in which they oversee research and product development activities for the company.
Loucks left Giatec a year after, and according to Ghods and Alizadeh’s LinkedIn pages, they have both returned to their initial C-suite positions.
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BDC Capital’s latest investment in Giatec will be allocated towards the latter’s goal of lowering carbon [CO2] emissions that come from concrete production by 400 million tons annually—the equivalent of taking 110 million cars off the road.
By using its concrete testing products with its predictive AI-based software, Giatec claims that it can help reduce carbon emissions by up to 20 percent.
“The BDC Capital investment will propel Giatec’s expansion into international markets and accelerate our innovation in CO2-reducing technology, moving the concrete industry toward carbon neutrality,” said Ghods.
BDC Capital’s Cleantech Practice was created five years ago, as a result of a $600 million investment to support Canadian cleantech firms in the federal budget. As of 2020, BDC Capital claims that the Practice has doled out nearly $350 million, in which $55 was invested through its indirect fund venture capital program. The bank further said that it has supported over 30 companies, with an average deal size of almost $10 million.
With Giatec as one of its latest additions, BDC Capital’s Cleantech Practice portfolio also includes Cubic Farms, Ekona, General Fusion, GHG Sat, Hydrostor, Mysa, Peak Power, Svante, Terramera, and VueReal.
Featured image from Giatec’s website.
