BrightAI, a company bringing artificial intelligence into the physical world, has secured $51 million in Series A funding to revolutionize how critical infrastructure is maintained and operated.
The investment round was co-led by Khosla Ventures and Inspired Capital, with participation from BoxGroup, Marlinspike, VSC Ventures, Rsquared VC, Cooley LLP, and other strategic investors. This brings BrightAI's total funding to $78 million, following an earlier seed round led by Upfront Ventures.
Founded in 2019 by Alex Hawkinson, who previously founded SmartThings (acquired by Samsung in 2014), BrightAI has developed a platform called Stateful that transforms reactive infrastructure maintenance into proactive, AI-driven operations. The company has already achieved significant traction, with annualized revenue exceeding $100 million.
"AI will not only transform the digital world but our physical world as well," said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. "BrightAI is using AI to monitor and maintain aging infrastructure, from power grids to pipelines and more, securing key assets for our future."
The Stateful platform collects data through sensors, drones, and wearable devices, creating digital twins of physical assets that enable real-time monitoring and predictive maintenance. The system has been deployed at more than 50,000 customer locations, monitoring over 250,000 assets including water pipelines, power transmission infrastructure, HVAC systems, and factory equipment.
What sets BrightAI apart is its ability to unlock billions of previously untapped data points from the physical world, turning them into actionable intelligence. This approach helps infrastructure operators prevent costly failures before they occur, addressing critical challenges like aging systems, climate volatility, and labor shortages.
"For decades, the physical world has lacked real-time awareness—teams have been forced to operate reactively, without the visibility they need," said Alex Hawkinson, Founder and CEO of BrightAI. "We designed BrightAI to close that gap by continuously capturing and translating real-world signals into actionable intelligence."
The new funding will support BrightAI's expansion into new industries and markets. The company plans to hire more than 100 new employees across engineering, operations, and go-to-market teams, and will open a new headquarters in San Francisco in the coming quarter.