Cognite AS, an energy- and manufacturing-industry software developer, expects to add another 30 or so new hires by the end of year — the majority of whom will be based in Austin, said North America President Francois Laborie.
Roughly 22 currently work at Cognite’s North American headquarters at 3200 Gracie Kiltz Lane at The Domain, where the business occupies a full floor, said Laborie, who holds a doctorate in computer science from the Toulouse Computer Science Research Institute in France.
The first task, he said, is to hire enough people to populate the office.
Positions projected to be filled include those on the product, customer success and sales and marketing teams.
The expansion will be fueled by a $150 million investment Cognite announced May 19, which valued the company at $1.6 billion.
Austin became the North American headquarters of the Norway-based business last summer.
TCV, an investment firm based in Silicon Valley, provided the $150 million to Cognite. TCV General Partner Jake Reynolds has joined Cognite’s board as part of the deal. Aker ASA, an industrial investment firm in Norway, is Cognite’s majority stakeholder. Cognite has raised a total of $250 million.
The company said with the backing of Aker and TCV, Cognite “will accelerate the full-scale data-driven transformation of legacy industries.”
Co-founder and CEO John Markus Lervik said in a statement that “the partnership with TCV allows us to amplify our software solutions to empower asset-intensive businesses to improve their sustainability and profitability of operations, and perfectly complements the extensive industrial knowledge brought in by our majority shareholder, Aker.”
Cognite customers include BP, Saudi Aramco, Alfa Laval, Statnett and Mitsubishi.
The company also employs about 15 in Houston and roughly five others who are working remotely in locations in Canada and the United States.
Cognite was founded in 2017 and is one of the fastest-growing industrial software companies in the world with over 500 employees across offices in Europe, the United States, Asia, and the Middle East. It helps companies in the oil and gas, manufacturing and power and utilities sectors save money and improve efficiency by providing services such as AI-powered predictive maintenance.
Laborie said Cognite generated about $65 million in revenue last year, up from $38 million the year before.
“We anticipate that growth trajectory to continue,” he said. “Cognite was profitable or running break-even for its first several years of business, but we have shifted to growth mode for the last year, as we consciously invest in product development and scale on the back of strong customer demand.”
