Teleo's plan for remote operation of heavy equipment aims to transform construction, mining industries

Editor's note: As part of the Bay Area Inno Awards, the San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal are highlighting nine startups from nine categories across the innovation space. We chose these firms based on their ability to fundamentally change the game in their respective fields, grow quickly and durably and develop useful products to solve compelling problems. Here's the honoree in the robotics category.

In the construction industry, there are two universally accepted truths. First, staffing is a major challenge. And second, the cost to build just keeps rising — partly because of truth No. 1.

This labor problem was one motivation behind Teleo Inc., a three-year-old company founded by Vinay Shet and Rom Clement that provides hardware and software allowing construction and mining equipment to be operated remotely.

“Teleo converts heavy construction equipment into autonomous machines,” said Shet, Teleo’s CEO. “(Customers) can use their experienced operators to control those machines remotely, and eventually get to a point where a single person can control a large fleet of machines.”

In Shet’s view, the construction and mining industries are the backbone of our global economy. Without them — and their laborers — we wouldn’t have roads, or buildings or even much of the technology in play today. Teleo’s proposition is that by enabling construction and mining equipment to be operated remotely, firms can attract and retain more workers, including those who may not traditionally have been welcomed.

“Imagine a world where you can attract more women in the industry, or a wounded veteran who’s perfectly capable of working, but has a disability that prevents them from getting in physically,” Shet said. “It does open up a wider pool that our customers can leverage.”

Teleo retrofits its customers’ machines with the hardware and software needed for their remote operation, Shet said. Customers pay for the use of Teleo’s technology, though Shet declined to state a range or schedule of fees charged to customers. He also wouldn’t reveal the number of customers the company serves.

Shet and co-founder Clement started Teleo after years of working in computer vision and autonomous machines. Shet most recently worked for Lyft Inc., helping direct the ridesharing company’s self-driving car effort. Prior to Lyft, he led a team at Google LLC that used machine learning to create maps from both aerial images and Google Street View. Clement also worked at Lyft, where he was the head of hardware engineering, and at Google; there, he helped create the custom cameras that were mounted on Google’s Street View vehicles and airplanes.

The bulk of Teleo’s team works in Palo Alto and in Canada, Shet said, adding that he is “bullish” on Silicon Valley remaining a center for technological innovation.

“We’re a robotics company, so we need folks to be hands-on with what we’re doing,” he said, continuing, “If you’re building a more robotics-type company, I still believe the best talent is to be found in Silicon Valley. That’s why we are here.”

Teleo went through YC’s program, part of the accelerator’s winter 2020 class. This June, it raised $12 million Series A round, which Shet says was because he and Clement created a sustainable business, with clear business and go-to-market plans and a vision of long-term success.

“I’m actually incredibly bullish about our business, for the simple reason that we’re going after a phenomenally large problem, and we’re going after it in a very programmatic way,” he said. “I strongly believe that people are going to want to be a part of this.”

Indeed, the market size of the U.S. construction industry is estimated to be about $2.7 trillion, according to IBISWorld. The next step for Teleo is to increase the number of machines using its technology by scaling both its hardware and software. Shet said he hopes to achieve that goal within the next year.

“It is an absolutely exciting time to be doing this in this industry, because there’s so much to be done,” Shet said. “(Robotics) is so massive, and there are so many niches that you can go after, that it truly feels like you can do something enduring in this space.”

Teleo Inc.