Expat Australian’s US-based bushfire detection startup lights up $68 million Series B

A US startup used extensively by Australian authorities to detect bushfires has raised a US$44 million (A$68m) Series B.

The round for Pano AI included an undisclosed level of secondary share sales, with the surveillance platform claiming to have raised A$138m (US$89m) in its five-year-old lifetime.

New investor Giant Ventures led the raise, supported by Liberty Mutual Strategic Ventures and Tokio Marine Future Fund, as well as existing backers Congruent Ventures, Initialized Capital and Salesforce Ventures.

The new cash will go to deployment of its AI-powered bushfire detection hardware and intelligence software.

Pano AI was cofounded by expat Australian Arvind Satyam and US supply chain expert Sonia Kastner in mid-2020 following the devastating 2019-20 summer fires that scorched at nation, killing 33 people.

Pano AI cofounders Sonia Kastner and Arvind Satyam.

Satyam, the chief commercial officer, grew up in Sydney, studying engineering and then a masters of finance at University of NSW. His undergraduate thesis was on wireless location detection.

He moved to the US in the mid 2000s and spent more than a decade working at Cisco.

“We started Pano AI in the wake of Australia’s devastating Black Summer bushfires in 2020, recognising a clear need for better tools to support fire agencies and emergency services,

“As fire seasons become longer and more severe, there’s a growing demand for fast, reliable intelligence to support early response. This investment will help us accelerate our product innovation, scale our technology to more regions across Australia and internationally, supporting communities, infrastructure and the environment through smarter, earlier fire detection.”

The California-based scaleup now has contracted revenue of more than AU$154m to monitor more than 12 million hectares in the US, Canada and Australia, including 2 million here across five states.

Its clients include 13 forestry companies, and 250 first responder agencies at the federal, state and local levels, as well as utilities, renewable energy, ski resorts and community associations.

The system’s value was demonstrated in early 2024 when a fire broke out in a remote agricultural corridor in South Australia’s Green Triangle. Pano AI’s cameras detected smoke within minutes from 30km aware, triggering alerts to authorities. The system triangulated the fire’s location and delivered precise GPS coordinates, enabling the South Australian Country Fire Service to deploy five trucks and 25 crew members to the scene.

Green Triangle Forest Industries Hub chair Cameron MacDonald said Pano AI’s camera network and mapping capabilities deliver vital situational intelligence to deal with fire threats

“Fire doesn’t recognise boundaries so this collaborative partnership, supported by the South Australian Government, ensures we are using the best possible fire management tools to extinguish fire threats before they affect lives, property and the forestry industry,” he said.

Giant Ventures cofounder Cameron McLain said “Pano AI is creating a new layer of resilience that will massively reduce the impact of increasingly frequent fire events.”