ENGIE New Ventures, the investment structure of ENGIE’s Research and Innovation division dedicated to innovative start-ups accelerating the energy transition, participated, alongside INNOVACOM and High-Tech Gründerfonds, in the round that enabled the French deeptech company SAMP to raise 4 million euros.

Co-founded in 2020 by Shivani Shah, CTO and Laurent Bourgouin, CEO, SAMP made its debut in the Parisian incubator Station F. It then joined the deeptech incubator Agoranov in September 2021, and then RaiseLab, a dynamic ecosystem fueled by Schoolab and RAISE, last June. It provides industry with patented AI and 3D technology that combines existing data with 3D images taken in the field to create an accurate digital twin of the site in just days.

The SAMP-ENGIE collaboration

SAMP has very quickly partnered with Storengy (a subsidiary of ENGIE) and CRIGEN, the group’s R&D center dedicated to green gases (hydrogen, biogas and liquefied gases), new uses of energy in cities and buildings, industry and emerging technologies (digital technology and AI, drones and robots, nanotechnologies and sensors).

The start-up has already deployed its shared reality solution on one of the 14 underground natural gas storage sites of Storengy, one of the world leaders in this sector. For the second year in a row, the two companies are finalists in the “David with Goliath” competition, which rewards the best alliance between start-ups and large corporations.

This investment aims to support the start-up in its growth, in particular by facilitating collaborations between SAMP and the Group, which contributed to the development and testing of the technology.

Laurent Bourgouin declared during the round of financing:

“Our “shared reality” solution is the catalyst to make the transformation of these sites towards more sustainable production more reliable and faster. Our ambition is to become the essential solution that enables industrial players to meet the colossal challenges of today in terms of safety, resilience and the environment. This round of financing with a world leader in energy such as ENGIE demonstrates the industry’s confidence in our technology and allows us to accelerate our technical and commercial development, particularly internationally.

A digital twin for industrial sites

Industrial infrastructures need to be maintained and upgraded regularly, adapting to environmental and economic challenges, yet site operators, engineers or subcontractors rely on existing, often incomplete, paper diagrams for their upgrade plans.

SAMP’s patented AI-based 3D streaming solution reconciles all site technical documentation (such as PIDs) with 3D scans of the field, allowing manufacturers to access accurate reproductions of their sites and all the data associated with the elements to be maintained or repaired. It thus enables the rapid and secure simulation of complex engineering or maintenance operations thanks to reliable and contextualized 3D data, facilitating the coordination of all the players on a site.

Antoine Boudehent, digital and industrial project manager at Storengy, states:

“SAMP allowed us to quickly establish a rich and functional digital twin of Storengy’s facilities. The resulting 3D scans are a very accurate representation of the reality on the ground. SAMP has also allowed us to gather our different data sources, which are now accessible to operators, maintainers and engineers via a single software to allow them to prepare their interventions.

Johann Boukhors, Managing Director of ENGIE New Ventures, adds:

“As an industrial player, ENGIE is interested in the deployment of intelligent solutions such as SAMP to improve the safety and performance of our facilities and those of our customers. We see many use cases for SAMP across the group, in addition to a technical cooperation with CRIGEN.”

Translated from Jumeau numérique : ENGIE New Ventures investit dans la deeptech SAMP et sa solution de réalité partagée