Stuttgart-based vialytics, an AI-based road management system for cities and communities, announced on Tuesday, January 17, that it has raised $10M (approximately €9.22M) in a Series A round of funding.
The round was led by Scania Growth Capital. Existing investors EnBW New Ventures and Statkraft Ventures also participated in this round.
Scania Growth Capital is a Scania-funded and East Hill Equity-managed investment vehicle that backs B2B tech firms. Scania is a leading provider of sustainable transport solutions. East Hill Equity assists businesses in their growth from conception to profitability through a long-term, flexible, and fair investing approach.
Christian Zeuchner, partner at East Hill Equity, says, “Municipalities are ready for the digital age and vialytics has proven that the GovTech market is extremely attractive. vialytics is convincing a large target group with its SaaS solution.”
“Artificial Intelligence for better roads!”
Founded in 2018 by Patrick Glaser, Achim Hoth and Danilo Jovicic-Albrecht, vialytics system automatically collects and analyses the condition data that is required for the regular preservation and maintenance of roads. This makes it simpler for workers to carry out their municipal responsibility to guarantee road safety.
In the web system of a computer, the recorded data is processed across offices and rehabilitation measures are planned effectively for sustainable road management.
The Stuttgart-based company claims to have partnered with 100 municipalities since the beginning of 2021. In the meantime, there are 300 who regularly use the vialytics system to drive on their roads and generate measures from the acquired data. “There is currently no system that meets municipal requirements better than ours,” says co-founder Patrick Glaser.
Currently, the company is working with 250 partner municipalities in Germany and 50 more in France. It also has customers in Austria, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. The company says that with the help of the new investors, it can satisfy the demand from Germany and neighbouring European nations.
Funds to expand in the US and AI development
vialytics says that it will use the funds to further develop its core product of automatic road condition detection. “We invented the SaaS category of automated road management systems. That’s why we can develop a product from scratch that supports end users in their workflows,” says founder Danilo Jovicic-Albrecht.
Currently, vialytics’ development team is putting all of its effort towards the automatic detection of damaged manhole covers and water drains after recently presenting extensions for cycling paths and winter services. The company believes that the quick entry into the American market should be successful, thanks to Andy Kozma, a US entrepreneur serving as Chief Revenue Officer.
CEO and founder Patrick Glaser mentions that its current team of 60 employees will also be doubled in the next 2 years.
Steffen Funck, MD of Statkraft Ventures, says, “We are convinced that vialytics’ technology will bring safer and more cost-effective roads to many more cities in Europe and the US, especially in times of tight government budgets and difficult job markets.”
