A startup born out of Worcester Polytechnic Institute is trying to change the way that cities assess and manage their infrastructure.
Roadgnar, created while its founders were students at WPI, has developed a seven-inch cubed sensor module which makes a 3D map of the world, and can be deployed on a variety of vehicles.
“The idea came from going to school in Worcester, driving around one summer and noticing infrastructure wasn’t really in great condition,” said co-founder Daniel Pelaez in an interview. “It got me curious as to how cities and towns manage their assets.”
The company’s technology helps towns and cities collect detailed, high-quality and objective data on their infrastructure, he said.
The company’s sensors collect data, and then Roadgnar formats it to make it easy for municipalities to use in their existing GIS management systems.
“The value proposition to them is quick turnaround time and easy-to-understand data so they can get right down to planning, budgeting and making overall better data decisions,” Pelaez said.
It’s a process that today is usually both manual and reactive. Cities send workers around to take notes on their infrastructure, or rely on residents’ complaints about potholes or other damage. Roadgnar wants to help them automate those processes and make them more proactive.
The company just signed its first official contract with a city in Maryland, and its also launching a beta program next year for around 20 municipalities.
Roadgnar raised $100,000 from angel investors earlier this year and is about to kick off another round of angel funding, in the $300,000 to $400,000 range. The company hopes to be ready to go for multimillion seed funding in the next year, said Pelaez.
It’s also been relying on institutional support from WPI, having started off in the university’s I-Corp mentoring program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation. And the support has continued after graduating, Pelaez said.
“We’ve had probably 20 plus mentors and advisors just from the alumni network that I’m constantly getting advice from,” he said.
