Pacific Gas & Electric Co., whose faulty equipment has sparked numerous wildfires in recent years, is hoping to spur the development of technologies to accurately detect and autonomously suppress the blazes.
The utility giant is teaming up with the charitable foundation of late Intel Corp. co-founder Gordon Moore as the chief sponsors of an $11 million XPrize competition announced Friday. The contest is intended to find new ways of fighting wildfires even as they become more common and more devastating.
"We have been fighting wildfires the same way for decades — it's not working, and the destruction is getting increasingly worse," Peter Diamandis, executive chairman of the XPrize Foundation, said in a press release. "We need a radical re-invention of how we detect and battle these blazes."
The four-year competition is divided into two areas, each with a $5 million prize:
- In one, teams will have to monitor a 1,000-square-kilometer area, autonomously detect any fires within it and autonomously suppress them within 10 minutes of detection, while leaving any decoy fires untouched.
- In the other, teams using space-based technologies will have to detect within a minute all the fires burning within an area larger than individual states or countries and then precisely describe and report those fires to two ground stations inside 10 minutes with as few errors as possible.
Additionally, Lockheed Martin is funding a $1 million bonus prize for those who show innovative means of precisely and accurately detecting wildfires.
The contest already has a contestant: Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR and Anduril Industries Inc. Luckey was the first to register for the competition, according to the press release.
The contest could "deliver massive benefits to humanity by saving lives and eliminating many billions of dollars in economic devastation," Luckey said in the news release.
The prize comes in the wake of a series of devastating fires in recent years sparked by PG&E power lines, including the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and helped push the company into bankruptcy the following year.
Fundings
- Abdera Therapeutics Inc., Menlo Park, $110 million, Series B: VenBio Partners led the round for this developer of radiation emitting cancer drugs. Qiming Venture Partners, RTW Investments and Viking Global Investors also invested. The company also disclosed a previously unreported $32 million Series A funding from 2022 led Amplitude Ventures and Versant Ventures.
- Robust.ai Inc., Palo Alto, $20 million, Series A1: Prime Movers Lab led the round for this developer of warehouse and manufacturing robots and related software. Future Ventures, Energy Impact Partners, Jazz Venture Partners and Playground Global also participated.
- Vinci Games Inc., San Francisco, $5.1 million, Seed: Makers Fund led the round for this developer of virtual reality games. Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Pioneer Fund, Anorak Ventures, BonAngels and Twitch cofounder Kevin Lin also invested.
- Charm Solutions US Holding Inc., San Francisco, $3.5 million, Seed: BootstrapLabs led the round for this provider of risk analysis software for lenders.
- Monarch Visual Technologies Inc (dba Switchboard), San Jose, undisclosed amount: Hubspot Inc.(NYSE: HUBS) invested in this developer of remote collaboration software.
Funders in the news
- Piva Capital added Adam Lasics as a partner of strategy and operations. The San Francisco venture firm also promoted Roxanne Tully to principal.
- Headline hired Sophia Samutin as a vice president focused on financial technology. Additionally, the San Francisco venture firm hired Jake Horwitz as a senior associate focused on application software and Sasha Krecinic as an associate focused on software.
