Tip-offs
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Each week, we surface promising startups & founders through data signals.
This week, we’re spotlighting Oil & Gas Tech and the new age of oil workers →
O&G’s Trillion-Dollar Opportunity
Can AI replace the retiring oil workers?
The oil and gas workforce is ageing, and retiring experts are taking decades of undocumented knowledge with them.
A16z calls it “The Great Crew Change” while putting AI at the center of the fix: by capturing and preserving this retiring wisdom in chatbots and digital systems to train the next generation of oil workers and reduce operational risks.
The prize could be a trillion-dollar shift in productivity. Oil & Gas powers AI's exploding energy demands, while AI helps the industry cut costs and unlock harder-to-reach reserves.
Leaders are already reporting gains in speed and cost.
Yet, adoption lags. EY's 2025 Future of Energy Survey reveals that technology investments are falling short, with only 71% of firms having adopted AI.
Oil & Gas Tech Startups
High-growth startups using AI to improve efficiency, safety & productivity across oil and gas operations. Ranked by website visit growth over the past 3 months.
AI Driller| 2988% growth in 3 months
All-in-one AI operations platform for drilling and completions, providing real-time analytics, directional drilling, anti-collision alerts, well planning, and geosteering in a single cloud-based suite. Raised a $500K Seed round in Dec 2021.
Houston, US
Applied Computing | 1372% growth in 3 months
AI foundation model delivering real-time predictive asset-failure & CO₂ forecasts for oil & gas upstream operations. Upstream solutions launching Q1 2026. Raised a $12.09M Seed round in May 2025 from Stride.VC & Repeat Ventures.
London, UK
VisionPlatform.ai | 121% growth in 3 months
AI video analytics platform turning existing cameras into real-time O&G safety sensors for PPE detection, fire/smoke alerts, remote asset monitoring, and hazard alerting. Raised a $377K Pre-Seed round in Sep 2023.
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Scannable | 109% growth in 3 months
Smart PPE™ and equipment management platform for O&G, digitizing inspections, compliance reporting, and inventory tracking via NFC/QR scanning. Raised a $3M Seed round in Nov 2024 from DCM Ventures.
Dunedin, New Zealand
Rock Flow Dynamics | 78% growth in 3 months
Developer of tNavigator, an all-in-one reservoir modelling & simulation platform for O&G, integrating seismic interpretation, geology, production engineering, and Digital Twins. Raised a $2M Series A in Nov 2010 from Intel Capital.
Houston, US
Oil & Gas Tech Founders
Recently funded founders building the modern Oil & Gas tech stack, from robotics and energy data platforms to industrial cybersecurity and compliance.
Aaryan Mehta
Imperial College London (CS). Ex-Amazon engineer. Co-founder & CTO of Interface, building AI agents that audit procedures and improve safety across industrial operations. Raised a $3.5M Seed in Nov 2025 from Defy.vc.
San Francisco, US
Richard Zhang
Tufts University (CS). Ex-Shell TechWorks engineer.
Previously co-founded hydrogen supply chain integrator LIFTE H2 (Acquired by Electric Hydrogen). Now founder & CEO of CVector, building energy data & modeling infra. Raised a $5M Seed in Jan 2026, led by Powerhouse Ventures.
New York, US
Gary Holmgren
Arizona State University (Mechanical Engineering). Ex-NASA engineer.
Co-founder & CEO of Drover Labs, building autonomous robots for inspection and operations across oil & gas infra. Raised a $3.1M Seed round in Jan 2026.
San Francisco, US
Or Turgeman
Technion (Computer Engineering). Ex-Israeli Military Intelligence (R&D).
Now co-founder of OneLayer, building cybersecurity infra to secure private LTE/5G networks used in critical industries like oil & gas and energy. Raised a $28M Series A in Oct 2025 led by Maor Investments & McRock.
Aviv, Israel
Hood Whitson
Pepperdine University (Telecommunications). Graduate of Singularity University. VP Product at SNT (3 years), scaled business platform across 120+ media publishers. Innovation Specialist at Pioneer Natural Resources (3 years). Now founder and CEO of Element3, changing how the world mines critical materials. Raised a Series A in Sep 2025 led by TO Ventures, Cubit Capital, and EIC Rose Rock.
Fort Worth, US
Carried Interest
Tweets & articles of the week.
Copilot today, autopilot tomorrow
AI may flip the biggest market in tech: services, not software
Yann LeCun and Demis Hassabis hold two very different views on what intelligence actually is
AI researchers may soon look more like chief scientists running experiment loops
Ramp’s AI index shows Anthropic pulling ahead in the enterprise AI adoption race
