Neara, an AI-powered predictive modelling platform for critical infrastructure, secured €28 million in a Series C funding round led by EQT. Partners Group and Square Peg Capital participated, and existing investors Skip Capital and Prosus Ventures provided additional support.
Speaking to TFN, Jack Curtis, Chief Commercial Officer, shared: “The funding will accelerate Neara’s global operations and continued investment in AI across the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, and Asia Pacific. We’re addressing the growing challenges of energy resilience and infrastructure modernization across multiple key verticals. Neara will significantly expand its machine learning research and product development to extract more insights from available data.”
What exactly does Neara do?
Recognized as one of the TIME100 most influential companies for its commitment to grid resilience and reliability, Neara’s AI-assisted predictive modeling software helps infrastructure owners make critical proactive decisions. It conducts precise analyses in hours or days that would otherwise take months or years in the field.
Unlike other companies, Neara’s technology combines whole-network analysis, large-scale geospatial analysis, and detailed physical simulation on a per-asset, per-component basis. This provides visibility into the poorly understood upstream and downstream implications across field operations.
Practically speaking, the model supports end-to-end network governance — from routine operational decisions to load-growth planning, emergency scenarios, and major grid-hardening investments — without requiring manual survey verification. Neara’s technology eliminates critical network governance silos, enabling utilities to validate investment decisions and measure outcomes.
Neara’s technology has modeled over 12 million infrastructure assets covering more than 1.5 million miles across four continents. Utilities using the software can identify the risk of power outages nine times faster and restore power three times as quickly.
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Neara uses AI and digital modeling technology to create hyper-accurate virtual models of critical infrastructure. Using electricity networks, utilities use the model to stress-test infrastructure, including power lines and pylons, by simulating extreme weather events such as flooding, high winds, wildfires, or soaring temperatures. These “digital test drives” allow utilities to safely and rapidly identify actions and early interventions to increase resilience and reduce power outages at scale.
Curtis continued: “Neara’s platform leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to construct 3D digital models of utility networks that are behaviorally and geometrically identical to field assets. Every asset bends, deforms, sags, and sways in response to high winds, heat waves, flood waters, and more — exactly as it would in the real world. Machine learning models extract more information and insights from often disparate and sometimes contradictory data sources. ”
Investors are optimistic about the potential to disrupt the energy market.
“EQT is focused on making responsible investments that address global challenges and drive innovation for a better future. Neara exemplifies this by empowering mission-critical service providers to enhance infrastructure reliability and efficiency, unlocking bottlenecks, and accelerating the energy transition in key markets,” added Sam Franklin, Managing Director of the EQT Infrastructure advisory team.
Cyrus Driver, Managing Director at Partners Group, said, “In many cases, infrastructure is lagging behind rapidly changing societal needs, including across the energy grid, transportation, and digital infrastructure. As a result, it’s never been more important that every dollar invested in infrastructure demonstrably improves performance. Neara’s industry-leading technology is essential for every asset owner to run high-functioning, resilient infrastructure. We have deep thematic conviction in Neara’s offering, and we are already working with management on multiple opportunities to deploy its solutions within Partners Group’s global network.”
The green road ahead
While Neara currently focuses on helping global electric utilities mitigate risks, the company will expand its modeling and simulation technology to improve resilience across a wider range of critical infrastructure, including telecoms and public transportation. Neara has already begun modeling broadband infrastructure throughout the United States to help providers accelerate efforts to connect underserved populations.
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