Announcing new investment and strong customer growth
We are thrilled to announce an additional $5.2M investment in Overstory today led by Convective Capital, a venture capital firm backing companies solving our wildfire crisis, and joined by other top-tier global investors. This new investment will allow us to continue expanding the Overstory product — a vegetation intelligence platform that helps utilities reduce the risk of power outages and wildfires caused by trees and plants touching their power lines.
Vegetation is the single greatest contributor to power outages and to wildfires caused by our electric grid, which is why Overstory is committed to solving this problem. Climate change is altering weather patterns and causing droughts, infestations and more intense storms, all of which increase the risk of catastrophic wildfires and power outages caused by improperly managed vegetation. These increased risks mean utilities around the globe are rapidly turning to Overstory to provide analysis and actionable recommendations for vegetation management across their networks.
“Utilities are a key stakeholder in our collective fight against extreme wildfire and Overstory’s AI-based solution helps them better focus, prioritize and track their efforts. The company’s breakout growth is a testament to the quality of its product and we are thrilled to partner with Indra and the team in this next chapter.”
Now more than ever, it’s clear there is a huge demand for what we’ve created: a scalable, cost-effective solution to the problems that utilities are facing. We’re proving that machine learning applied to satellite imagery is that solution. Sho-Me Power Electric Cooperative, a US transmission operator, recently implemented Overstory on 2 of their 3 vegetation management programs and saw a 13x ROI.
In the last three months, two top 10 US utilities and one of Europe’s largest utilities have joined the Overstory portfolio. We’ve also added investor-owned utilities and coops across North America from Canada to Mississippi, and California to Virginia. Overstory’s rapid expansion has seen the total transmission and distribution mileage of our customer base grow from 36,000 miles to more than 700,000 miles, a 19X increase in less than 9 months.
At this time of global economic uncertainty, we take this new round of funding as a major vote of confidence in what we’re building. In addition to Convective Capital, we are happy to welcome B Capital Group, Semapa Next, and Bentley iTwin Ventures to our amazing slate of investors. The round also includes follow-on investments from existing investors: Pale Blue Dot, CapitalT, Moxxie Ventures, Toba Capital, and Climate Capital.
“The need for proactive, targeted, and accurate vegetation management has become an urgent issue for utilities, now more than ever. We believe Indra and his team are building a critical solution to help utilities around the world prevent wildfires and power outages, leading to better infrastructure management and safer communities. B Capital is excited to support Overstory in its mission, reflecting our strategy of investing in innovation that helps industries adapt to changing environments.”
Tackling such an enormous challenge requires a diverse set of approaches, which will come from diverse teams. That’s why we’re proud of the fact that, in our team of 31, 11 nationalities are represented and we work remotely from 8 different countries. Five out of the nine leaders in our company are female or non-white males, 45% of the overall team identify as female and 26% of the team are people of color.
Understanding trees and plants, at a global scale and in real time, is a critical aspect of solving our climate crisis. That’s the mission that inspires our team every day.
