Accenture To Acquire Bengaluru-Based Industrial AI Startup Flutura

Multinational consulting and IT giant Accenture on Tuesday (March 21) said that it would acquire Bengaluru-based industrial artificial intelligence (AI) startup Flutura. However, it did not disclose the financial details of the deal. 

This is Accenture’s third major acquisition in the Indian AI space in the past three years. Prior to this, it acquired analytics platforms Bridgei2i in 2021 and Byte Prophecy in 2020. The deal is yet to be completed and is subject to completion of customary closing conditions. 

The acquisition will strengthen Accenture’s industrial AI platform and will enable it to increase the performance of its clients’ plants, refineries, and supply chains, the company said in a release.

The move will also allow Accenture to leverage Flutura’s capabilities in building its AI capabilities and roll out new offerings for its clients in areas such as energy, chemicals, metals, and mining.

“…This acquisition will power industrial AI-led transformation for our clients globally and particularly in Australia, Southeast Asia, Japan, Africa, India, Latin America and the Middle East,” said Accenture’s senior managing director and head of applied intelligence vertical for growth markets Senthil Ramani.

Founded in 2012 by Krishnan Raman, Derick Jose and Srikanth Muralidhara, Flutura is an industrial AI analytics platform that allows its clients to assess and improve the performance and throughput of production and manufacturing facilities. It ingests data from multiple sources and runs it through its algorithm to predict and improve asset performance and reliability.

Flutura’s solutions also help clients develop digital models of industrial assets with data from multiple sources and across many systems. The startup claims to have a headcount of 110. 

It last received an undisclosed amount of funding from Hitachi High-Technologies in 2017. Prior to this, Flutura also raised $7.5 Mn in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures in 2017 itself. 

Flutura claims that its platform has so far optimised more than 5,000 facilities and been leveraged by 10,000 engineers. Flutura has partnered with many big names such as Gartner, Shell, Aramco, Lupin, among others. 

Flutura largely competes with companies globally and locks horns with names such as FogHorn, Seeq, and Kayrros. 

As per a report, the global industrial AI market was pegged at $3.1 Bn at the end of 2022 and is projected to grow to $58.3 bn by 2029.