CPE News (9/14/2021) – Crux Operations Control Management Limited (CruxOCM) has raised $6 million in new financing led by Bullpen Capital with participation from Angular Ventures, Root Ventures, Golden Ventures, Cendana Capital and Industry Ventures.
Calgary based CruxOCM delivers innovative operations control management software that crushes the complexity and inefficiencies associated with standard operations control rooms.
CruxOCM will use new capital to grow its product lines, increase the efficiency of its installation process, and continue expanding its team across North America.
photo credit: CruxOCM
News Release
CruxOCM Raises $9M Total in Venture Financing; Latest Led by Bullpen Capital
Additional Funding is Earmarked to Enhance Offering to Increase Customer Revenue and Safety of Control Room Operations of Critical Infrastructure Assets
CALGARY, AB, Sept. 14, 2021 /CNW/ — Following very strong initial product deployments in heavy industrial control room environments, CruxOCM, the pioneer of robotic industrial process automation (RIPA™) for control room operations, today announced that it has raised $6M in venture financing to fuel growth. Early customers are on track to uncover hundreds of millions in additional revenue through deployment of CruxOCM’s initial product line, pipeBOT. The recent round was led by Bullpen Capital, with participation from Angular Ventures, Root Ventures, Golden Ventures, Cendana Capital and Industry Ventures. The capital will be used to grow the company’s product lines, increase the efficiency of its installation process, and continue expanding its team across North America.
CruxOCM’s total funding to date is $9M, building off of a venture round of $2.6M in 2019 co-led by Angular Ventures and Root Ventures. CruxOCM has proven a strong product market fit over the last three years and is on track to provide more control room operators with the best tools available to perform their jobs safely and efficiently. The company’s software is also instrumental in helping companies to minimize environmental impact and maximize bottom-line revenue via increased asset utilization and throughput. CruxOCM will also use the additional capital to bolster installations so that it can expand across client asset bases faster and begin pursuing additional product lines into gas plants, gas pipelines and offshore facilities.
“We’re excited to access capital from this group of deep tech, industry-leading venture firms to bring our technology to more control rooms in the energy sector,” said Vicki Knott, co-founder and CEO of CruxOCM. “Control rooms are the brains, heart, and soul of the energy sector and they are in dire need of innovation. Our mission to give control room operators superpowers will ensure the efficiency and safety of an essential infrastructure we rely on daily.”
RIPA is the foundational technology on which CruxOCM automation solutions gatherBOT and pipeBOT are built. CruxOCM works with companies ranging in size from $17B to $77B market capital, to improve efficiency and safety across the control room through automation. RIPA enables up to 99% reduction in human factors so control room operators can increase their productivity throughout the day.
“CruxOCM’s RIPA is a game-changer in the industry and we’re thrilled to be a part of this next growth stage,” said Eric Wiesen, managing partner at Bullpen Capital. “RIPA is crucial for bringing increased efficiency into existing heavy industry control room infrastructure while maintaining safety. Even as we prioritize green energy initiatives globally, oil and gas will still be instrumental in the energy transition so we must use technology to automate where we can while helping companies to augment metrics in order to hit ESG goals.”
“It’s exciting to see the benefits of software automation and intelligent process control reach further and further into traditional heavy industries, which have so far been slower to adopt some of these advanced technologies,” said Gil Dibner, partner at Angular Ventures. “CruxOCM is at the forefront of leveraging the power of intelligent robotic automation to drive massive efficiency gains in the oil & gas industry- something that has profoundly positive safety and environmental implications as well.”
CruxOCM has experienced rapid growth in the last two years. Since its initial funding in 2019, the company has proven that its software can increase revenue and safety of operations in a production environment on critical energy infrastructure. Early customers are among North America and the world’s leading energy giants–and are rapidly expanding pipeBOT deployments. These early customers are also accelerating additional product offerings from Crux’s roadmap to bring RIPA to other verticals in their businesses. Among the products that early customers have fast tracked are powerOPT and draOPT, further decreasing costs of operation through intelligent automation for their critical infrastructure.
To learn more about CruxOCM, visit www.cruxocm.com.
About CruxOCM
Crux Operations Control Management Limited (CruxOCM) delivers innovative operations control management software that crushes the complexity and inefficiencies associated with standard operations control rooms. From maximizing & optimizing flow rates to streamlining critical start-up and shut-down procedures, we help the world’s energy companies achieve a step change transformation of their operations control systems and deliver dramatic results that reduce risk and increase competitiveness, growth and profitability. CruxOCM’s RIPA™ software platform offers superior execution of control room operations and a scalable architecture to help our clients stay ahead of rapid change or be the ones creating it. For more information, visit cruxocm.com.
About Bullpen Capital:
Bullpen Capital is a venture firm that invests in startups between their Seed and Series A rounds. This differentiated ‘Post-Seed’ strategy catapults startups to a supersize Series A while giving founders more control over their future. Since 2010, Bullpen has invested in nearly 80 companies projected to generate over $5 billion in annual revenues. Collectively, they have raised $1.8b in follow-on funding. Bullpen seeks out startups that have achieved product-market fit in nontraditional locations and markets ranging from sports betting and medical cannabis to the Internet of Things and the sharing economy. The portfolio includes well-known companies such as FanDuel, Wag!, SpotHero, Ipsy, and Namely. For more information visit www.bullpencap.com.
SOURCE CruxOCM
For further information: Justine Fuchs, 585-737-8418, jfuchs@n6a.com, https://www.cruxocm.com/