Haavind has acted for Equinor in its investment in eSmart Systems announced today.

Team Haavind on this deal has been Arne Byberg, Isak Mendoza, Herman Stieng, Andreas Vik and helmed by Kjetil Hardeng.

“Once again this shows how our commitment to stay ahead of the tech-understanding curve, combined with our strong M&A practice, attracts market leaders and transformative deals; the sweet spot of what we love doing”, says Kjetil.

From the press release January 16;

Equinor and Nysnø new investors in eSmart Systems eSmart Systems today announced a successful capital raise of 18 MUSD. Equinor Energy Ventures leads the round joined by Nysnø Climate Investments (Norwegian sovereign wealth fund) and existing eSmart shareholders, including Kongsberg Digital.

“We are thrilled to have these companies onboard as new shareholders and growth partners to fulfill our common ambition to propel eSmart Systems onwards and upwards to the number one global enterprise in our market. This successful funding process gives us an excellent platform to fully unlock this potential,” says Knut H. H. Johansen, founder and CEO of eSmart Systems.

eSmart Systems is a pioneer in developing AI-products based on machine learning technology that automatically identifies and extracts relevant information from image and IoT-device sources.  This includes, for example, power grid infrastructure inspections with automatic detection of grid anomalies and peak load predictions based on smart meter data.

“We regard this to be a strong investment case for the Equinor Energy Ventures fund, backed by a management team with proven track record. eSmart is also a knowledgeable partner for the wider Equinor when it comes to data analytics and machine learning with obvious synergies on data platform architecture and energy infrastructure inspection,“ says Gareth Burns, Vice President in Equinor and Managing Director of Equinor Energy Ventures.