Software company MaintainX last week closed a $150 million series D funding round, suggesting investors see growth potential in AI tools to improve facility maintenance operations.
"MaintainX has achieved remarkable product-market fit by addressing a critical challenge that affects virtually every physical asset-driven industry," said Byron Deeter, a partner at venture capital firm Bessemer.
The funding will help MaintainX expand its AI capabilities, advance predictive maintenance solutions and further develop its enterprise asset management capabilities, the company said in announcing the round.
The fundraise comes at a time when the average cost of outages is increasing. Almost 30% of industrial respondents in a survey the company conducted last year say there’s been an increase in the financial impact of disruptions.
Proactive maintenance is the most effective way to reduce unplanned downtime incidents, according to the survey, which was based on responses by 1,165 maintenance, repair and operations professionals.
Although 86.8% of facilities use preventive maintenance strategies, almost 60% dedicate less than half of their maintenance time to these strategies, highlighting a crucial area for improvement, MaintainX says.
Almost half of building operators believe that AI could have a significant impact on improving the efficiency of preventive maintenance and scheduling, according to a report by Building Engines, a JLL company. This belief has led a number of vendors – including Carrier, IBM, Honeywell and Ecotrak – to upgrade their AI-driven maintenance systems and launch new technologies aimed at improving operations.
“With [AI-driven] predictive maintenance, you can anticipate equipment failures are going to happen before they happen, and I think that’s what everybody’s trying to get to,” Scott Boekweg, product management lead at JLL, said in January during a joint webinar with IFMA on the state of facilities management technology. “This not only reduces the downtime, but it also prevents the overspending on unnecessary maintenance, and AI can help with that.”
MaintainX serves more than 11,000 companies managing more than 11 million assets globally, the company says. Its services help reduce unplanned downtime by 34%, increase production capacity by 15% and reduce monthly maintenance costs by 32%, it claims.
"Equipment failures cost companies $1.4 trillion annually, and many still rely on outdated tools. We built MaintainX to change that," Chris Turlica, CEO and co-founder of MaintainX, said in a statement.
The company raised $50 million at the end of 2023 to add AI and other improvements to its platform. With this latest round of capital funding, MaintainX is valued at $2.5 billion, Reuters reported.
