Global venture capital firm Emerald Technology Ventures has announced the successful exit of its investment in SewerAI, an AI-powered platform that helps utilities and infrastructure operators inspect, assess, and rehabilitate underground infrastructure.
The announcement follows SewerAI’s recently disclosed strategic investment led by JMI Equity, marking a major milestone in the company’s growth and highlighting the increasing adoption of AI-driven infrastructure intelligence across North America.
Emerald first invested in SewerAI in 2022, recognizing the company’s potential to modernize one of the world’s most overlooked yet essential infrastructure systems. Since then, SewerAI has expanded its reach, helping more than 2,000 cities and infrastructure organizations manage aging sewer networks through AI-powered inspection, risk assessment, and rehabilitation planning.
As municipalities across North America face aging underground infrastructure, labor shortages, rising regulatory requirements, and growing climate resilience challenges, SewerAI’s platform has enabled utilities and engineering firms to move from manual and fragmented workflows to faster, data-driven infrastructure management.
“With two decades of backing digital innovation in pipe and sewer infrastructure, SewerAI stood out as a company capable of redefining how critical assets are managed,” said Dr. Helge Daebel, Partner at Emerald and exiting SewerAI board member. “Matt, Billy, and the entire team combined deep infrastructure expertise with AI long before the market fully appreciated how transformative that combination would become. We’re convinced the partnership with the new investors will bring SewerAI to new levels of category-defining success.”
The investment reflects Emerald’s broader strategy of identifying and scaling technologies that improve industrial productivity, resource efficiency, and infrastructure resilience. SewerAI represents a growing class of AI-enabled industrial software companies targeting large infrastructure markets with measurable operational and societal impact.
Founded in 2000, Emerald manages and advises more than €1.3 billion in assets from offices in Zurich, Toronto, and Singapore. The firm focuses on startups developing technologies that address climate, sustainability, and industrial challenges.
For SewerAI, the new investment marks another step in its growth trajectory as the company continues expanding the use of AI to help municipalities and infrastructure operators better manage critical underground assets.
