Industrial plants operate at the edge of chaos. When a refinery's catalytic cracker starts showing unusual pressure readings or a chemical plant's distillation column begins to drift off-spec, operations teams face a race against time. Every minute of downtime can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Every missed optimization opportunity compounds into millions in annual losses. Yet these teams are making critical decisions with data scattered across sensors, maintenance systems, manufacturer PDFs, and the institutional knowledge locked inside their most experienced engineers' minds. The process of gathering information and performing analysis can take days. 

The plant can't wait that long.

This is the structural challenge that drew us to Archimetis, and we're thrilled to announce that Inspired Capital led their $11.5M round alongside Homebrew, MCJ, and exceptional operators. Archimetis is building the AI-powered operational reasoning system that transforms how energy, chemical, and industrial plants make decisions under pressure.

The thing that stood out to us about our initial conversation with co-founder and CEO, Paul Manwell, was his belief that we can actually have a greater impact on our climate by making historically “dirty” industries operate more efficiently. Of course, we can pursue renewable energy initiatives as well, but we may actually be able to have a greater and faster impact by using the promise of AI to reduce emissions from the sources that likely won’t be going away anytime soon.

Archimetis acts as an operational intelligence layer that continuously monitors plant operations, combines data from disparate sources, performs complex engineering analysis, and delivers actionable insights in real time. The platform doesn't just aggregate information; it applies the kind of judgment and reasoning that previously required a plant's most experienced engineers working for days with Excel spreadsheets and tribal knowledge. By building on breakthrough AI technology from systems like DeepMind's AlphaCode, Archimetis elevates every team member with the judgments and instincts of the very best, while ensuring organizational best practices are consistently applied across every shift.

Co-founders Paul Manwell and Aaron Brown bring exceptional technical depth to this problem. Paul spent years as Chief of Staff to Sundar Pichai and founded Google's cross-company data warehouse, while Aaron led the 60+ person product team responsible for Google's internal developer infrastructure—the platform used to build all of Google's apps and services. They built the systems that enable Google to operate at a massive scale under constant pressure. Now they're applying that expertise to an industry that has been operating with inadequate support systems for decades.

The results validate their approach. A 120,000-barrel-per-day refinery demonstrated $34-45 million in annual bottom-line impact through margin improvement, cost savings, and enhanced process safety. The platform works because it solves the real problem: not just having data, but making sense of it fast enough to matter. When production issues arise or optimization opportunities emerge, Archimetis gives operations teams the analysis and insights they need immediately, not days later.

What makes Archimetis's approach work is the balance between advanced AI reasoning and deep operational understanding. The system handles the complexity of combining structured sensor data with unstructured documentation, manufacturer specifications, and company-specific practices. And it maintains the security and reliability requirements of mission-critical industrial operations. For plant managers facing increasing pressure to optimize performance with aging infrastructure and retiring expert workforces, this isn't just a productivity tool. It's a fundamental shift in how industrial operations can be managed.

We're excited to partner with Paul, Aaron, and the Archimetis team as they build the operational intelligence layer for the global industrial sector.