A California startup's $20 million Series A round could bolster wildfire fighting efforts in Oregon.
Pano AI, a startup that builds imaging systems to detect and prevent wildfires, has raised a $20 million Series A led by Initialized Capital and included Congruent Ventures, Convective Capital, DCVC, January Ventures and Quiet Capital.
The startup counts Portland General Electric (NYSE: POR) as a client.
The San Francisco startup, founded about three years ago, is part of an emerging segment in climate tech that is focused on dealing with the ramifications of climate change, as opposed to finding ways to prevent it. The company works with local governments, utilities and private land owners to install 360-degree cameras that use artificial intelligence to quickly detect a fire and alert local fire agencies.
"Some consider it defeatist to work on adaptation or resilience because it was an admission of defeat within the greentech community," said CEO Sonia Kastner. "We just need to get past that, because we need to work on both and there's no shortage of brilliant entrepreneurs and technologists and business professionals to work on slowing down and reversing climate change, while working on coping with climate change that is already happening."
Kastner said the company currently has 60 fire stations installed for 12 customers across five states and Australia. Along with PGE, its clients include Xcel Energy (Nasdaq: XEWL), Holy Cross Energy, the Big Sky Fire Department, Aspen Fire Protection District, Forestry Corp. of NSW (Australia).
Kastner and a few other employees at Pano came from Nest, Google's brand of smart home security camera and thermostats. Pano strives to create a similar product, both easy to use and ubiquitous, she says.
The selling point of Pano AI's product, which includes hardware cameras and cloud-based software, is that it can report fires quicker or at around the same time as a 911 call, while also pinpointing the exact location of the emerging fire, Kastner says.
"Unlike a 911 call, when they get an alert from Pano, we give them a link to a live video of the fire that lets them see the fire's behavior and assess the severity and determine what resources they need," she said. "In the past, they would need to take that 911 call and send out a fire truck to go try to find the fire, pinpoint its location and assess the severity, and only then could the full response begin."
Kastner said the company will use the new funds to expand its team, scale production of its product and add new features, including the ability to detect mudslides, which are a common occurrence after large wildfires.
The company currently has about 35 employees and a manufacturing facility in the Mission District.
