Applied Computing raises $20M for plantwide energy model

Applied Computing has raised a $20 million Series A led by KBR, with Databricks Ventures also participating, as the London startup pushes its Orbital model for oil, gas, refining, and petrochemical facilities.

Founded in 2023, the company is targeting industrial sites where thousands of sensors track variables such as temperature, pressure, velocity, and viscosity. CEO and co-founder Callum Adamson told TechCrunch that operators often make decisions using less than 8% of the data available to them because they struggle to connect sensor data, engineering documents, and the underlying physics and chemistry fast enough for real-time analysis.

“It’s getting those three data sources to talk to each other in real time. That’s the real key.”

Applied Computing says Orbital differs from a large language model by combining a time series model, a physics-based model, and a language model to predict the state of an entire facility. The system analyzes sensor readings while accounting for physical and chemical behavior, equipment constraints, and operator activity. It also lets technicians simulate how a change in one part of a plant could ripple through the rest of operations.

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The company’s pitch is speed. Applied Computing says Orbital can detect anomalies, investigate likely causes, and test whether a fix could create problems elsewhere in a facility within minutes. Adamson said that work previously took days or weeks, and can now be compressed into seconds, with the goal of cutting energy use while maintaining output.

The startup says it went from stealth to double-digit millions in annual recurring revenue in under 18 months. Adamson said Orbital is already used by some large, publicly listed companies across upstream oil and gas, downstream refining, and petrochemicals, though he declined to name customers or say how many there are.

Its partners include Wipro and KBR, which has integrated Orbital into its INSITE 3.0 digital platform and is using it for ammonia production. Adamson also said the company is working with a major U.S. upstream operator and expects to announce a partnership with a European oil major in the coming weeks.

Competition and expansion plans

Applied Computing is entering a crowded industrial software market. AspenTech and AVEVA already sell simulation, optimization, and plant modeling tools, while Cognite and Seeq focus on industrial data analysis and AI workflows.

Adamson argued the company’s advantage is less about raw access to industrial data and more about building a research team capable of creating a model that can compete with Orbital.

“It’s an AI problem. It’s not a data problem, and it’s not an energy problem. If you’re a tier-one AI researcher, where are you going to work? … I don’t think Shell’s on that list.”

He also said Orbital benefits from deployment data that is difficult to obtain elsewhere, since operational refinery and plant data is typically not public and simulated data cannot fully capture what happens inside a live facility.

Applied Computing plans to use the new funding to expand internationally, hire in research and engineering, and deepen deployments with energy customers. On Thursday, the company said it also opened a Houston office, adding to its London headquarters and operational hub in Bengaluru. Adamson said the U.S. office puts the startup closer to two existing customers in North America, with expansion into the Middle East also planned.