SpaceAge Labs is a deep tech startup fostered at NUS Enterprise @Singapore Science Park. It is revolutionising remote and dispersed asset operations and maintenance by gathering asset data with low power, long-range wireless IoT devices and advanced AI software to derive valuable insights from this data. This boosts asset uptime (due to data-driven predictive maintenance), lowers costs (since less staff is needed), and delivers peace of mind (operators gain real-time asset visibility).
Meanwhile, the Singapore-based provider of remote monitoring and IoT/AI solutions, has raised $1.25M in seed funding led by Silicon Solution Partners and SEEDS Capital, the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore.
Fund utilisation
The funds will be used to grow the company’s workforce, develop abroad, and start a number of pilot initiatives in Singapore, Australia, and the United States.
“Growing populations, greater urbanisation, rising labour costs, a shortage of experienced personnel, high safety standards, and social distancing requirements – all of these reasons have combined to create a significant demand for remote monitoring and IoT/AI solutions.” This is why we founded SpaceAge Labs: to assist governments and enterprises in improving the way they manage their vast assets for increased efficiency, reliability, and safety,” stated Deepak Pitta, Founder and CEO of SpaceAge Labs.
SpaceAge Labs’ flagship product is RemoteEye, a sensor-agnostic IoT/AI platform that enables linked operations and maintenance.
SpaceAge Labs said in a statement that it has IoT installations with over 30 customers, including two significant Smart Nation pilot projects in Singapore.
SpaceAge Labs will conduct pilots with landscaping companies in Brisbane and Sydney in H1 2022 to help them improve the efficiency of their grass-cutting labour. If these are successful, they may lead to nationwide deployments. Similar landscaping pilots will be carried out in the United States in the second half of 2022.
SpaceAge Labs intends to conduct several pilots in Singapore, which will monitor water consumption patterns and detect leaks in facilities, weather/air quality in outdoor spaces, water quality in swimming pools and water play areas, and remote mechanical/electrical equipment, such as decentralised water treatment skids and water tankers.
“We intend to do additional pilot studies with businesses and governments to demonstrate how remoteEye results in cost savings, higher safety/hygiene standards, improved performance, and less dependency on labour. To accomplish so, we will need to hire more people and expand abroad. Our company currently comprises 12 employees, the majority of which are based in Singapore, while one of our co-founders has relocated to Australia to oversee the pilots there. We intend to quadruple our headcount over the next 6-12 months, with positions available in Product Development and Sales & Marketing. We also plan to open foreign offices in Australia and the United States in order to better reach our target audience,” Deepak Pitta elaborated.
SpaceAge Labs intends to conduct a number of trial projects in Singapore to analyse water use trends, detect facility leaks, and monitor weather and air quality in public places. It will also monitor the quality of water in swimming pools and water play areas, as well as mechanical and electrical equipment such as decentralised water treatment skids and water tankers.
SpaceAge Labs is sponsored by Imagine H2O (a water innovation accelerator) and PUB’s Singapore Water Exchange. Planetspark, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SGX mainboard listed Excelpoint Technology, is also a partner, assisting SpaceAge Labs with technology advancement while also investing in the round.
The journey
Deepak co-founded SpaceAge Labs in 2016 alongside Ananth Subba (Chief Technology Officer, currently stationed in Australia), Leela Krishna (Chief Business Officer), and Sashikumar Y (Chief Product Officer). The company began as a consulting firm, providing end-to-end IoT solutions for its customers, but shifted to a product company in 2017. In the same year, SpaceAge Labs was accepted as an NUS Enterprise incubatee, situated in NUS Enterprise’s deep-tech incubation facility in Singapore Science Park I, where access to hardware, a prototyping lab, and networks to potential partners and consumers aided the start-up greatly.
SpaceAge Labs also worked with the NUS Office of Facilities Management team to put the first iteration of its remoteEye IoT solution through its paces. This trial was carried out to detect defective lamps on the NUS Kent Ridge Campus, resulting in increased nighttime safety for walkers and automobiles. More room was required as SpaceAge Labs grew in size. SpaceAge Labs relocated to its own unit inside PUB’s Singapore Water Exchange in 2020 in order to be closer to the water sector ecosystem, which is one of its primary target verticals.
