Toronto-based Validere, an oil and gas IoT and artificial intelligence platform, has raised $7 million in seed funding.
The round included lead investor Sallyport Investments alongside Y Combinator, Real Ventures, Moment Ventures, and ZhenFund.
The goal of Validere is to help companies understand the quality of their product. The platform allows companies to schedule field measurement activities and third party lab samples, capture more insight, and detect off-spec shipments in advance. “More than $2 trillion worth of crude oil is traded annually,” said Ian Burgess, Validere’s co-founder and CTO. “As oil constantly changes hands, batches mix together irreversibly changing the product’s quality. The industry largely bases important operational decisions on poor quality data. Our platform not only informs product quality reliably and in real time, but it also uses AI to help oil and gas companies optimize product movement.”
The new round of funding will fuel Validere’s US expansion and further the development of Validere’s new AI-powered blending, logistics, and trading optimization platform.
“Quality analytics represents a massive opportunity to push the industry forward. Validere’s strong cross-functional team, proprietary AI platform, and deep understanding of the industry uniquely positions them to add tremendous value to midstream and upstream businesses,” said Doug Foshee, former CEO of El Paso Corporation and current owner of Sallyport Investments.