South East Angels backs ManholeMetrics to stop flooding before it starts
South East Angels is pleased to announce its investment in ManholeMetrics, a London-based IoT company that builds low-cost wastewater sensors and monitoring software for the utilities, rail and highways operators responsible for drainage networks.
The seed investment will support the company's growth as it converts a strong base of early deployments into scaled rollouts across the UK, United States and Canada, building out its commercial team and its distribution partnerships. It arrives at a point where climate change, urbanisation and ageing infrastructure are combining to put sustained pressure on drainage assets that were never designed for the volumes now passing through them.
Founded by Will Dubin, ManholeMetrics addresses one of the water sector's most persistent operational problems: network operators have very little live data on what is happening inside their own assets, so flooding and overflow events are often dealt with after the fact rather than prevented. The company's own analysis of government data puts the UK at around 240,000 local flooding incidents a year, at a cost of more than £1bn annually in damage and management - against roughly a million kilometres of assets and 25 million manholes that go almost entirely unmonitored.
ManholeMetrics has developed a non-contact level sensor that is installed in under ten minutes by one person, with a battery life of over 10 years and global connectivity allowing it to work in remote locations, beneath cast-iron covers. A single unit fits a range of chamber types via interchangeable mountings, and the sensor can be repositioned rather than permanently fixed. Data flows into Porthole, the company's platform, which issues real-time and predictive flood alerts by combining live levels with rainfall forecasts and historic datasets.
The company has built commercial traction across three countries, with more than thirty utility and infrastructure clients. It has also signed a partnership with Oldcastle Infrastructure, the world’s largest stormwater company and North America’s largest supplier of manholes and manhole covers, giving ManholeMetrics access to an established utility customer base well beyond its direct sales reach.
"Wastewater is an essential service sitting at the very backbone of society, but currently these critical assets are largely unmonitored" said Will Dubin, Founder and CEO. "We set out to develop essentially a “smoke alarm” for these networks, affordable and quick to install units that operators can use to cover a whole network rather than a select handful of problem sites - this is where we believe true ROI sits. With South East Angels' support we can build out our commercial team and partnerships to deploy our sensors at scale across the UK and North America."
"Will has done something genuinely difficult here: engineered the cost and installation time out of a category that everyone agreed was needed but nobody could afford to deploy properly. His background and expertise shows in the product it is built by someone who understands how these assets are actually operated and maintained. We’re looking forward to supporting Will on his journey." - Jake Fox, Syndicate Lead, South East Angels.
Find out more about ManholeMetrics. Connect with Will Dubin.
