Water quality and logistics monitoring software Ketos raised $15 million from a group of investors to take advantage of the growing demand for better water management tools and technologies.
According to the press release, potential for more stringent regulatory oversight of industrial water use and wastewater management from local, state and federal government, coupled with increasing consumer and investor demands for better corporate environmental stewardship, is driving an unprecedented adoption of technology and services aimed at increasing conservation and reducing waste across industries.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the renewed attention on water is one reason why an investment arm of the banking giant Citi joined lead investor Motley Fool Ventures and Illuminated Funds Group to invest into Ketos.
They join existing backers including Ajax Strategies, Better Ventures, Broadway Angels, Plum Valley Ventures and Rethink Impact.
Silicon Valley Bank provided the company with $3 million in debt financing, added the press release.
According to Ketos, the company will use the funding to develop new capabilities for its combined hardware and software service. This serivce provides information into water quality and the existence of potential damage to water pipes for distribution and disposal of water.
“Creating one of the largest centralized data lakes of water quality insights — with information on heavy-metal toxins, coupled with location-based mapping and potential contamination sources — the potential for what machine learning and artificial intelligence can achieve is limitless,” said Meena Sankaran, Ketos company’s founder and chief executive.
The company also uses machine learning to predict where problems with water systems might arise.
