The London-based startup Applied Computing has closed a $20 million Series A round led by engineering firm KBR. Its Orbital model promises to reduce anomaly analysis in refineries and petrochemical plants from days to seconds.
Applied Computing, a startup founded in London in 2023, has announced the closure of a Series A funding round for $20 million. The operation has been led by engineering giant KBR, with participation from Databricks Ventures. The company develops an artificial intelligence model called Orbital, designed to optimise operations in oil, gas, and petrochemical plants.
According to company data, a typical industrial facility can host thousands of sensors measuring temperature, pressure, speed, or viscosity. However, the fragmentation of information prevents operators from fully leveraging their potential. Callum Adamson, co-founder and CEO of Applied Computing, states that facilities make operational decisions using less than 8% of the available data.
Orbital: a model that integrates three data sources
Unlike large language models that predict the next word, Orbital combines a time series model, a physics-based model, and a language model. This triple approach allows for predicting the state of a facility by analysing sensor readings, physical and chemical constraints, and operator activity. Technicians can run simulations to anticipate how a change in one part of the plant would affect the rest of the operations.
The key, according to Adamson, is speed. Orbital can detect anomalies, investigate their causes, and model solutions in a matter of minutes. The CEO claims that their product can reduce investigations that previously took days or weeks to just seconds. This helps operators decrease energy consumption and maintain uninterrupted production.
From zero to tens of millions in revenue in 18 months
Applied Computing claims to have gone from a state of stealth to generating tens of millions in annual recurring revenue in less than 18 months. Orbital is already being used by companies in oil and gas, refining, and petrochemicals, although the startup has not disclosed the exact number of clients. Among its partners is the Indian energy company Wipro and KBR itself, which has integrated Orbital into its digital platform INSITE 3.0 for energy projects, using it in ammonia production.
The startup is also working with a major oil operator in the U.S. and plans to announce a partnership with a European oil company in the coming weeks. To support this expansion, Applied Computing has opened an office in Houston, adding to its headquarters in London and its operational centre in Bengaluru (India). Adamson notes that the U.S. base brings the company closer to two of its current clients in North America and that it is also preparing to grow in the Middle East.
A competitive market with established players
Applied Computing enters a market where established industrial software providers and other AI startups already operate. AspenTech offers AI simulation and modelling for refineries and chemical plants; AVEVA provides physics-based simulations and process optimisation; and Cognite and Seeq focus on the industrial data layer. However, Adamson believes that his company's competitive advantage does not lie in access to data or industry knowledge, but in the ability to attract top AI researchers.
“It’s an AI problem. It’s not a data problem, and it’s not an energy problem. If you’re a top AI researcher, where are you going to work? … I don’t think Shell is on that list,” says the CEO.
The partnership with KBR provides Applied Computing with real operational data, industrial expertise, and contacts with potential clients. Data from refineries and energy plants is not usually publicly available, and simulated data does not accurately reproduce what happens in a functioning facility. Orbital, by receiving data from real deployments, gains accuracy.
With the $20 million raised, the startup plans to expand internationally, hire staff for research and engineering, and explore new implementations with clients in the energy sector. For the reader interested in industrial technology, the advancement of Orbital represents a step towards a more efficient and less energy-intensive operation, with the potential to reduce costs and emissions in a key sector.
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