IoT/AI Solutions Start-up, SpaceAge Labs, Raises US$1.25 Million in Seed Funding to Make Cities Cleaner, Greener, and Safer
“Growing populations, increased urbanisation, rising labour costs, lack of skilled workers, high safety standards and social distancing stipulations – various factors have been coming together resulting in the strong need for remote monitoring and IoT/AI solutions. This is why we set up SpaceAge Labs – to help governments and corporations improve the way they are managing their widespread assets for improved efficiency, reliability and safety,” explained Mr Deepak Pitta, founder and CEO of SpaceAge Labs.
Others obviously believe in Deepak’s vision. SpaceAge Labs today revealed that it has secured seed funding of US$1.25 million, led by Silicon Solution Partners (SSP), a VC firm supporting deep tech start-ups, and SEEDS Capital, the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore. SpaceAge Labs is also supported by NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of the National University of Singapore (NUS), Imagine H2O (a water innovation accelerator) and PUB’s Singapore Water Exchange. Planetspark, a wholly owned subsidiary of SGX mainboard listed Excelpoint Technology Ltd. is also a partner working closely with SpaceAge Labs to help accelerate their technology alongside joining the round as an investor. Mr Sunil Rai and Mr Shivam Ahuja from Dentons Rodyk & Davidson LLP served as legal advisers to SpaceAge Labs in this seed round. The start-up will use this seed funding to grow its team, expand internationally, and roll out several pilot projects across Singapore, Australia, and the U.S.
“We view SpaceAge Labs as having a strong and experienced technical team with successful use cases in the deployment of cost-competitive IoT solutions, with both a hardware and software platform to improve the real time monitoring and manpower productivity enhancement in traditional eco real estate management. This will further expand their business traction into other commercial segments as well,” said David Ng, CEO of SSP.
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“SpaceAge Lab’s innovative solutions, which are designed to help businesses in water and landscaping services to monitor their outdoor and remote assets, could potentially help drive their digitalization journey in the new normal as they create operational efficiencies and additional revenue streams. We look forward to supporting SpaceAge Lab on their commercialization journey, alongside our co-investor Silicon Solutions Partners,” said Ms Tan Kaixin, General Manager, SEEDS Capital.
The company’s flagship product is remoteEye, a complete, sensor-agnostic IoT/AI platform that enables connected operations and maintenance. remoteEye consists of three parts:
- rEye IoT Nodes – These are low-powered, wireless devices that read and transmit data from industrial sensors located at the assets.
- Wireless networks – The sensor data is transmitted via low power wide area wireless networks to the cloud. The networks are at low cost (from S$1 per month per device), able to transmit over long distances (several kilometres) and consume low power (up to five years of battery life).
- rEye Data Cloud – Enterprise-grade IoT/AI software that stores, analyses, and visualises this sensor data. This software is secure, easy to use and able to scale easily from managing one asset to thousands of assets. Proprietary AI software and geospatial data analysis provides useful insights and predictions that can be accessed via web or mobile.
While remoteEye can be applied in various sectors, SpaceAge Labs is initially targeting three sectors: Water/Wastewater; Urban Greenery/Landscaping; and Facilities management. SpaceAge Labs has IoT deployments with more than 30 customers, including two key Smart Nation pilot projects in Singapore: Firstly, working with National Parks Board (NParks) to digitalize grass-cutting operations to improve contractor efficiencies; and secondly helping the Public Utilities Board (PUB) to monitor for manhole overflow events in Singapore’s wastewater network. See Annex 1 and 2 for details on the NParks and PUB pilots.
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Seed funding to be used for new pilots and company expansion
SpaceAge Labs will continue to embark on more pilots, to demonstrate the benefits of its remoteEye IoT solution, as well as to find new customers and partners. In first half of 2022, SpaceAge Labs will conduct pilots with landscaping companies in Australia, to help improve efficiencies of their grass-cutting work in Brisbane and Sydney. If these are successful, it could lead to nation-wide deployments. Similar landscaping pilots will be conducted in the U.S. in the latter half of 2022. In Singapore, SpaceAge Labs plans to conduct several pilots, which will monitor water consumption patterns and detect leaks in facilities, monitor weather/air quality in outdoor spaces, monitor water quality in swimming pools and water play areas, and monitor remote mechanical/ electrical equipment, such as decentralised water treatment skids and water tankers.
“We hope to conduct more pilot trials with companies and governments, to showcase how remoteEye results in benefits including cost savings, improved safety/hygiene levels, improved performance and reduced reliance on manpower. In order to do so, we will need to increase our headcount and expand internationally. Currently, our team consists of 12 people, mainly in Singapore, though one of our co-founders has moved to Australia to supervise the pilots there. Over the next 6-12 months, we plan to double our headcount, requiring people in Product Development and Sales & Marketing functions. We also hope to open international offices in Australia and the U.S. in order to reach our target audience better,” explained Mr Deepak Pitta.
SpaceAge Labs’ entrepreneurial journey
Deepak founded SpaceAge Labs in 2016, along with co-founders Mr Ananth Subba (Chief Technology Officer, who is currently based in Australia), Mr Leela Krishna (Chief Business Officer) and Mr Sashikumar Y (Chief Product Officer). The company was originally a consulting company, designing end-to-end IoT solutions for its customers, but pivoted in 2017 to become a product company. In the same year, SpaceAge Labs became an NUS Enterprise incubatee, based within NUS Enterprise’s deep-tech incubation facility in Singapore Science Park I, where access to hardware, a proto-typing lab, as well as networks to potential partners and customers helped the start-up tremendously.
SpaceAge Labs also collaborated with the NUS Office of Facilities Management team to trial the first version of its remoteEye IoT solution. This trial was conducted to detect faulty streetlights on the NUS Kent Ridge Campus, leading to improved safety for pedestrians and drivers at night. As SpaceAge Labs grew in size, it required more space. In 2020, SpaceAge Labs moved to its own unit at PUB’s Singapore Water Exchange, to be closer to the water industry ecosystem, which is one of its key target verticals.
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