ENGIE New Ventures, the investment fund of ENGIE, Research & Innovation division, dedicated to innovative start-ups that accelerate the energy transition, has invested in the French DeepTech start-up SAMP, alongside INNOVACOM and High-Tech Gründerfonds.
Founded in Paris in 2020, SAMP optimises the management of industrial infrastructures via digital twins. A partner of Storengy and CRIGEN (ENGIE’s research laboratory) since its inception, SAMP has already deployed its shared reality solution at one of the 14 underground natural gas storage sites of Storengy, an ENGIE subsidiary and a global leader in this sector.
This investment is designed to support the start-up in its growth, notably by facilitating collaboration between SAMP and the Group, which has largely contributed to the development and testing of the technology.
In addition, for the second year running, SAMP and Storengy were finalists in the “David with Goliath” competition rewarding the most productive alliances between start-ups and large groups.
Digital twins for industrial sites
SAMP is aiming to become the leader in “shared reality for industrial sites”. Its patented technology, based on 3D streaming and artificial intelligence, reconciles all the technical documentation of sites (including PIDs) with 3D scans from the field, enabling manufacturers to access faithful reproductions of their sites and all the data to do with areas needing maintenance or repairs. The solution thus enables complex engineering and maintenance operations to be simulated in just a few hours in totalsecurity through reliable, contextualised 3D data, thus facilitating the coordination of all the players at a site (operators, engineers, subcontractors, etc.).
So with its solution, SAMP intends to play an active part in the energy transition by offering manufacturers a chance to rapidly modernise their infrastructures.
“SAMP has enabled us to quickly establish a rich, functional digital twin of Storengy’s facilities. The resulting 3D scans are a very accurate representation of the actual situation in the field. SAMP has also enabled us to bring together our various data sources, which are now accessible to operators, maintenance staff and engineers via a single software package, enabling them to prepare their actions,” says Antoine Boudehent, Digital and Industrial Project Manager at Storengy.
“As an industrial player, ENGIE is interested in deploying smartsolutions like SAMP to improve the safety and performance of our facilities and those of our customers. We can see a lot of different uses for SAMP across the group, as well as technical cooperation with CRIGEN,” says Johann Boukhors, Managing Director of ENGIE New Ventures.
SAMP CEO Laurent Bourgouin adds: “Our ‘shared reality’ solution is a catalyst that enables the faster, more reliable changeover of these sites to more sustainable production. Our aim is to become the go-to solution that helps industrial players rise to the huge challenges of today in terms of safety, resilience and the environment. This funding round with a global energy leader like ENGIE demonstrates the industry’s confidence in our technology and enables us to speed up our technical and commercial development, especially on an international level.”
ENGIE New Ventures (ENV) is the investment fund of ENGIE, Research & Innovation division, dedicated to innovative climate technology start-ups and the corporate venture capital arm of ENGIE, the global and services provider. ENGIE is committed to lead the energy revolution, towards a more decarbonized, decentralized and digitized world. ENV makes minority investments in innovative start-ups bringing strategic value to the Group with a focus on both the current ecosystem and on future breakthrough technologies. Since 2014, investments have been made in more than 45 solutions in the cleantech sector. Investment thesis is now focused in particular on renewables, energy efficiency solutions and flexibility, green gasses including hydrogen. ENV’s offices are represented in Paris, San Francisco and Tel Aviv. Further information: www.engieventures.com
About SAMP
SAMP was founded in 2020 and from the outset has based its development on a strong alliance between industrial experience (the CEO and the COO together have over 35 years of experience with operators, equipment manufacturers and industrial service companies) and considerable expertise in Deep Learning and 3D (the team has three PhDs and eight patents in these spheres); Further information: Samp – Intelligent as-built portal for industrial digital twins
