Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC has led a $91 million Series B round in Infravision, a US-based developer of aerial robotics systems for powerline construction and maintenance, according to an announcement.
The funding round, which was also backed by Active Capital and Hitachi Ventures and existing backer Energy Impact Partners, will support the firm’s power line stringing system, per the announcement.
Founded in 2018 by robotics engineer Cameron Van Der Berg and military veteran Chris Cox, Infravision says its technology replaces traditional ground and helicopter stringing methods with an integrated system of drones, intelligent ground equipment, and stringing hardware.
The firm said the approach is “faster, safer, and more cost-effective”, addressing schedule slippage and overruns that have dogged grid projects worldwide.
“This investment will help us scale to provide a faster, safer, and more cost-effective way to meet surging electricity demand as the world races to double grid infrastructure by 2040,” Infravision CEO Cameron Van Der Berg said.
Proceeds will accelerate deployment of the company’s TX System, which it describes as bringing helicopter-level capabilities into a truck-based, daily-use fleet for utilities and contractors.
The company added that the setup is designed to reduce outages, improve emergency response, and limit community disruption in challenging terrain.
Infravision says it has completed more than 40 major projects across four countries, citing work on Powerlink’s Genex transmission link in Australia and emergency-response deployments for PG&E in California.
The financing will also support North American expansion, including hiring engineers and scaling US operations and manufacturing, according to the announcement.
GIC is a global long-term investor established in 1981 to manage Singapore’s foreign reserves. It is invested in more than 40 countries worldwide across public and private markets. Recent public estimates put its assets at around $800 billion.
It recently co-led the up to C$750 million (about $538 million) new funding round for Canadian fintech Wealthsimple and anchored a $105-million secondary transaction in US-based Temporal Technologies.
GIC also led a $1.6-billion funding round in US-based Vantage Data Centers, which develops and operates large-scale, sustainable data centre campuses for cloud providers, hyperscalers, and enterprise clients.
