Industrial software-as-a-service startup Cognite AS said today it has raised $150 million in new funding to help accelerate the data-driven transformation of legacy industries in a bid to help make them more sustainable and profitable.

The Series A round was led by TCV and was raised on a valuation of $1.6 billion, giving Cognite unicorn status for the first time.

Founded in 2017, Cognite offers an industrial “internet of things” data platform that supports the digital transformation of heavy-asset industries. The company’s flagship product, Cognite Data Fusion, empowers companies with contextualized operational and information technology data to drive industrial applications that increase the safety and efficiency of industrial operations.

The company says CDF is digitizing asset-intensive industries globally by making industrial data more accessible and meaningful to humans and machines, enabling clients to create value through artificial intelligence-based applications and solutions. CDF is also used by companies to actively participate in the energy transition through data liberation and contextualization to address transparency, accountability and sustainability.

Cognite says it has seen strong growth due to COVID-related demand for digitization across industries. Notable Cognite customers include BP plc, Saudi Aramco Oil Co., Alfa Laval AB, Statnett and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

The investment by TCV does not end with funding alone. TCV, which has also worked with companies including Netflix Inc., OSIsoft LLC, Splunk Inc., Airbnb Inc. and Spotify Technology SA, will allow Cognite to harness TCV’s expertise in international expansion for industrial software companies.

“The partnership with TCV allows us to amplify our software solutions to empower asset-intensive businesses to improve their sustainability and profitability of operations, and perfectly complements the extensive industrial knowledge brought in by our majority shareholder, Aker,” Dr. John Markus Lervik, co-founder and chief executive of Cognite, said in a statement. 

Cognite has raised about $225 million in funding to date, including a round led by Accel of $75 million in October.

Image: Cognite