New funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and others will support Guidewheel in deploying plug-and-play FactoryOps to empower the world’s factories to cost-effectively drive both financial and sustainability goals

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Guidewheel, the leading FactoryOps platform, today announced it has closed $9M in Series A-1 funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, with participation from other existing and new investors. This fresh capital builds on the recent Series A led by Greycroft and allows Guidewheel to reach more manufacturers on its mission of empowering all of the world’s 10 million factories to reach sustainable peak performance.

Manufacturing is a key driver of good jobs and economic prosperity. It is also an industry with huge opportunity. Because equipment in factories often lasts for decades, a large number of machines in factories worldwide remain unconnected to the cloud even today. Key metrics are often therefore tracked manually, holding many factories back from achieving their full potential productivity and efficiency.

Guidewheel provides a fast, accessible, and elegant solution to bring those assets into the cloud and drive bottom-line impact. Inspired by the simple, universal truth that every machine on the factory floor uses power, Guidewheel clips onto the electrical draw of any machine to turn its real-time “heartbeat” into a connected, active learning software system that empowers teams to reduce lost production time, increase efficiency, and perform better and better over time.

With Guidewheel’s elegant design, any factory team can clip in all their machines—across all ages, makes, and models—and start seeing impact on key metrics like Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and margin within days. For example, one manufacturer, Penn Color, recently used Guidewheel to reduce costs and improve asset utilization 30-35%. And within the same FactoryOps platform, Guidewheel builds in all the tools manufacturers need to track and manage energy and carbon towards sustainability goals. The more a team uses Guidewheel, the bigger the impact—for their business and for the planet.

“Manufacturers are the backbone of our economy and in manufacturing, financial impact drives decisions,” said Lauren Dunford, CEO and Co-Founder of Guidewheel. “When the fastest and highest value-to-cost solution also includes the tools to drive real, quantifiable impact on sustainability, that’s a powerful combination. Working closely with manufacturing leaders and teams at every level, we are thrilled not only to see the results teams are achieving with Guidewheel today, but also all the new features we are launching to drive even more impact. We’re honored to work with Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Greycroft, two of the world’s top investors, to further accelerate and drive value for both manufacturers and our planet.”

Guidewheel’s FactoryOps platform presents an opportunity to achieve both large business benefits and dramatic reductions in energy and material waste across manufacturing, which contributes about one third of global greenhouse gas emissions. With real-time visibility, factories can lower their energy bills, drive more sustainable production, and have the data necessary for energy and Scope 2 and 3 emissions reporting.

“By providing real-time visibility into machine energy use, we believe Guidewheel can play a key role in global industrial decarbonization,” said Carmichael Roberts, Breakthrough Energy Ventures. “With FactoryOps technology that can work on all machines—old, as well as new—without requiring existing IT/OT infrastructure, manufacturing teams can achieve efficiency improvements at speed and scale. An investment that quickly pays for itself, it’s the rare climate technology with a negative green premium.”

"You can’t manage what you don’t measure. GHG emissions and energy usage were never more measurable and in real time than with Guidewheel. If you are serious about improving efficiency and reducing emissions you need to consider Guidewheel,” said Paul Kayser, CEO of Pretium Packaging, which uses Guidewheel across all of their 25+ plants globally.

“The Guidewheel team brings experienced leadership and talent to building category-defining software for manufacturers,” said Mark Terbeek, partner at Greycroft and Guidewheel board member. “We are excited about the impact and scale that Guidewheel’s unique platform, combined with the talented team they’ve built, is set up to achieve.”

To learn more about Guidewheel, visit www.guidewheel.com.

About Guidewheel

Guidewheel is the leading FactoryOps platform. Their plug-and-play technology empowers any factory to reach sustainable peak performance. Good for business, good for the planet. Guidewheel works with 100+ manufacturers across seven countries and was recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of 100 most promising companies globally poised to make a significant impact on business and society. Learn more at www.guidewheel.com.

About Breakthrough Energy Ventures

Founded by Bill Gates and backed by many of the world’s top business leaders, BEV has raised more than $2 billion in committed capital to support cutting-edge companies that are leading the world to net-zero emissions. BEV is a purpose-built investment firm that is seeking to invest, launch and scale global companies that will eliminate GHG emissions throughout the economy as soon as possible. BEV seeks true breakthroughs and is committed to supporting these entrepreneurs and companies by bringing to bear a unique combination of technical, operational, market and policy expertise.

BEV is a part of Breakthrough Energy, a network of investment vehicles, philanthropic programs, policy advocacy and other activities committed to scaling the technologies we need to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Visit www.breakthroughenergy.org to learn more.

About Greycroft

Greycroft is a seed-to-growth venture capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to build category-defining companies. The firm has deep experience investing in consumer, enterprise, digital health, and fintech sectors around the globe and works as a team to support and advise entrepreneurs, empowering them to execute on their visions. Greycroft values building enduring relationships with founders and understands that they want more from investors than just capital. Greycroft manages over $2 billion in capital raised and has made over 200 investments since inception. For more information, please visit https://www.greycroft.com.

Lauren Dunford
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