Uptake (business)

Uptake Technologies
Company typePrivate
Founded2014; 10 years ago (2014)
FounderBrad Keywell
Headquarters
Chicago, Illinois
Area served
Worldwide
ServicesPredictive analytics
Number of employees
250-500
Websiteuptake.com

Uptake is an industrial artificial intelligence (AI) software company. Built around a foundation of data science and machine learning, Uptake’s core products include an Asset Performance Management application and a fully managed platform.

Uptake’s industry-specific content, including its Asset Strategy Library (ASL),[1] provides guidance on failure prevention. The ASL is the largest in the market today with approximately 800 equipment types, over 58,000 failure modes and over 180,000 reportable conditions.

Uptake was founded by Brad Keywell in Chicago, Illinois in 2014.[2]

Business

Uptake was incorporated in 2014 and is located in Chicago, with offices in San Francisco, Houston, Albuquerque, Riyadh, and Mississauga.

In March 2015, Caterpillar announced its minority investment in Uptake, with the aim of the joint development of systems to monitor and improve use of the nearly 3 million pieces of Caterpillar equipment in the field.[3] Caterpillar’s core business offerings were completed in mid 2016.[4] On September 21, 2016, Progress Rail formed a strategic partnership, launching EMD Uptime, with Uptake for condition monitoring.[5] On March 2, 2017, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Energy, an $84 billion portfolio of companies primarily in the renewables space, announced a deal with Uptake.[6] Two of BHE's subsidiaries, BHE Renewables and MidAmerican Energy Company, now use Uptake's software to connect and track their fleet of wind turbines.

In June 2018, Uptake announced the U.S. Army would be using its software to improve the readiness of a few dozen of its Bradley Fighting Vehicles.[7]

In February 2018, Uptake announced the hire of Ganesh Bell, former chief digital officer at General Electric, as President.[8]

In June 2019, Uptake announced Ganesh Bell would step down as President.

In September 2020, Uptake announced that Kayne Grau would become its President.[9] In October 2021, the company announced Grau would become CEO and that Founder Brad Keywell would become Executive Chairman of the Board.[10]

Financing

On October 27, 2015, Uptake announced that it had raised $45 million in venture capital led by GreatPoint Ventures and existing investors including New Enterprise Associates and Caterpillar.[11] Uptake’s valuation was estimated to be one billion dollars, making it the third unicorn in the state of Illinois.[12] On February 1, 2017 investor Revolution Growth, a firm started by Steve Case, Donn Davis and Ted Leonsis, announced that they would be backing Uptake with $40 million as part of the Series C round.[13] This valued Uptake at $2 billion.[14] In November 2017, Uptake closed a Series D round of $117 million at a post-money valuation of $2.3 billion.[15] That brought Uptake's total funding to over $250 million.[16]

References

  1. ^ DiChristopher, Tom (2018-04-16). "Tech start-up Uptake makes 'big' acquisition in race to digitize the industrial industry". CNBC. Retrieved 2018-08-13.
  2. ^ "Brad Keywell". bradkeywell.com. Archived from the original on December 5, 2022. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  3. ^ "Caterpillar partners with Chicago startup Uptake to build data tools - Chicago Business Journal". Chicago Business Journal.
  4. ^ "Uptake Named as Hottest Startup of 2015 by Forbes Magazine". www.caterpillar.com. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
  5. ^ Briginshaw, David. "Progress Rail launches condition-based locomotive analytics". Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  6. ^ "Exclusive: Berkshire Hathaway Energy Inks Deal With Startup Uptake Technologies". Fortune. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  7. ^ "Army to use artificial intelligence to predict which vehicles will break down". Washington Post. Retrieved 2018-08-13.
  8. ^ Scott, Alwyn. "General Electric digital executive jumps to analytics firm Uptake". U.S. Retrieved 2018-08-13.
  9. ^ "Uptake Appoints Kayne Grau as President". Uptake. Retrieved 2021-10-05.
  10. ^ "Uptake Appoints Kayne Grau as CEO". Uptake. Retrieved 2021-10-05.
  11. ^ "Midwest Start-up Achieves Rare $1 Billion Valuation." New York Times. October 27, 2015.
  12. ^ "Chicago-Based Uptake Raises $45 Million, Reportedly Hits Unicorn Status." Chicago Tribune. October 27, 2015.
  13. ^ Chernova, Yuliya (2017-02-01). "Revolution Backs IoT Startup Uptake at $2 Billion Valuation". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  14. ^ Chernova, Yuliya (2017-02-01). "Revolution Backs IoT Startup Uptake at $2 Billion Valuation". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2017-03-02.
  15. ^ Scott, Alwyn. "U.S. startup Uptake valued at $2.3 billion in new funding round". U.S. Retrieved 2018-08-13.
  16. ^ Lunden, Ingrid. "Uptake nabs $117M at $2.3B valuation for industrial predictive analytics". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2017-12-21.