Tag Archive for: tech

End of Year Reflection
Research and Technology

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As this year comes to a close, we are taking our readers on a journey through 2021 in this three-part reflection series written by a variety of VIA’s leaders. The series covers the incredible milestones VIA has achieved in laying the foundation for big things ahead in 2022 as we Scale Up!

In 2021, VIA began to harvest some of the fruits of our research and previous development efforts of years past. We’re proud to share with you our technology accomplishments and what will make 2022 another record breaking year.

Technology Platform: Security and Agility

2021 was a year filled with major accomplishments for our technology platform.

Our VP Architecture, Jesus Cardenes, along with the entire DevSecOps team, pioneered a number of significant security enhancements to our data privacy-preserving analytics platform,  TAC™. In 2020, we released the capability to run TAC™ in a multi-cloud environment and continued to enhance these capabilities this year. In 2021, thanks to a robust container hardening pipeline, VIA celebrated having the first U.S. Department of Defense-wide cybersecurity accredited blockchain application. As part of our cybersecurity accreditation, we ensured that we migrated TAC™ to a Zero Trust Architecture and implemented Least Privilege Principle cybersecurity practices throughout our full product suite.

This year, TAC™ scaled as an application platform and currently supports multiple distinct analytics capabilities. Technical Architect, Ashley DaSilva, and her team put the TAC™ Ingestion Engine into production. This enables applications to orchestrate complex data ingestion and transformation workflows like taking thousands of files and automating their wrangling into an AI-ready database format. Early in 2021, execution auditability was demonstrated by our Technical Architect, John Muddle and his team, and was further developed by fellow Technical Architect, Madjid Aoudia, and his team demonstrating a highly scalable and auditable analytics system for satellite image data. These new features are key enablers for VIA’s full solution range, including VIA Insights Market™, GDAC™ Transformers, SWEET™, and JARVIS™.

There’s a Patent for That

In 2021, we were proud to have been granted our first patents developed by our VP Engineering, Kai Cheung, and fellow collaborators. These initial patents protect innovative technologies for homomorphic encryption and machine learning model evaluation. We also filed three new patents, ranging in scope from encrypted search, decentralized aggregation, and workflow threat mitigation. This brings VIA to a total of more than ten pending patents. We look forward to positive news on several of these filings in 2022. These technologies make TAC™ more secure, improve model execution performance, and lower power consumption. You’ll hear more about our efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of AI in 2022.

Research: Setting the Stage for Big Things

In 2020, we began work with our university research partner HSLU, smart meter manufacturer Landis+Gyr, and the Swiss Federal office of Energy. We finalized our first use cases that will help Distribution System Operators (DSOs) understand how technologies like electric vehicles, solar power generation, and battery storage are driving changes in the Swiss power system. In 2021, the team developed novel privacy-preserving algorithms to detect congestion in power systems, and completed a study of federated learning and model personalization for improved energy consumption forecasting. These technologies are being deployed at the edge, directly on smart meters and will be field tested in the first half of 2022. 

In 2022, we look forward to the start of a research collaboration with the University of British Columbia (UBC) on demand response for grid stabilization. The project will include the development and testing of blockchain-based algorithms for coordination between distributed energy resources across multiple distribution feeders. At VIA, we see this project as the start for a number of avenues of research collaboration into data-driven and privacy-preserving AI solutions for power system stabilization.

With all of our technology advancements in 2021, we were able to meet the needs of our customers, accept prestigious awards, and set the foundation to scale in 2022. The last blog in this series will highlight these major milestones we achieved as a company this year.

SwissInfo Highlights VIA in Article on Switzerland’s Shift to Renewables

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Switzerland aims to rely solely on renewable energy by 2050. Artificial intelligence (AI) is crucial to making this a reality, according to a recent SwissInfo article. The piece featured in Switzerland’s top English language news outlet highlights how VIA and our partners at Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts (HSLU) are putting AI into practice through smart meter research. With this work, utilities have a way to securely analyze smart meter data while protecting customer privacy.  

“No country in the world has a longer history or stronger reputation for data privacy. At the same time, no single utility has enough data on its own for AI,” noted VIA CEO Colin Gounden in an interview for the piece.“With so many utilities (650), Switzerland is a great proving ground for VIA’s collaborative technology (VIA Insights Market™).” 

VIA’s recently launched Insights Market brings AI models to data to increase data privacy and cybersecurity. It enhances security as power companies do not need to send  data to the cloud or to analysts. 

To learn more about our work and implications for creating a stable, carbon neutral energy system, read the full article from Swissinfo here.

End of Year Reflection
People

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As this year comes to a close, we are taking our readers on a journey through 2021 in this three-part reflection series written by a variety of VIA’s leaders. The series covers the incredible milestones VIA has achieved in laying the foundation for big things ahead in 2022 as we Scale Up!

2021 was a big year for us at VIA, so big, we needed three blogs to cover all of our milestones! This first part highlights our team, the VIAneers.

All About That Base

To keep up with our customer growth, we had our biggest year ever for new hires: 16! Our new VIAneers tell us that the onboarding experience when they join VIA is incredibly supportive, inclusive, and engaging – even when remote! In no small part, this is due to the continuous improvements we have been making over the past five years. 

From our founding, our core values have been reinforced day-to-day through a cohesive program of supporting processes. These ranged from six monthly offsites, formal mentorship programs, awards and incentives, learning and development, and structured feedback. With a hugely diverse team (e.g., we have 17 nationalities across 39 people around the world) we believe that systematic reinforcement of values has created the base necessary for a scalable organization. 

Our VP, People and Operations, Emma Fechney, deserves a huge shout out for instantiating our commitment to values into a successful system over the past several years. Emma took our theory of the case about the importance of mission, values, and diversity and built a program that we scaled and has an impact every day. In 2021, we branded this program the “VIAneers’ Experience Program.”

Great Support for Great People

A big milestone for VIA in 2021 was raising our Series A. We were genuinely surprised, in the best possible way, to hear from several investors during the diligence process that our “people processes” are on par with IPO-ing companies. 

Unsurprisingly, the first investment we made was in people, in particular, the kind who take care of others. Emma’s People and Operations team grew to include Felice Sicoli, our talent acquisition extraordinaire. Felice has helped shape our candidate experience and ultimately led us to our biggest recruitment year. Angelica Novoa, also joined this year as People and Operations Partner. Angelica joined us through a recommendation of a current VIAneer, Jonathan Chirwa. Referrals of friends are the best possible validation of our company culture and experience – and Angelica has proven this with her thoughtful contributions from day one! Both Felice and Angelica have been instrumental in enhancing and systematizing our onboarding experience.

Welcoming Felice and Angelica has yielded 16 new people to accept offers with us in 2021 while maintaining consistency in quality. Fewer than 1% of applicants ever get an offer at VIA. As one of our technical VIAneers, Antoine Dozois, says when he assesses candidates, “It’s not enough for candidates to be ‘good.’ They have to be ‘VIA Good.’”

A highlight of 2021, was our first hybrid (virtual and in person) company event, called Power Up Week. While we have a long history of assembling our company together weekly through “All Hands” video conferences and bi-annual offsites, this year we extended the invitation to our advisors, Lt. Gen. Spigelmire, Maj. Gen. Nesbitt, and Brig. Gen. Blackstock, as well as prospective advisors. We believe they are an extension of our team and need to be aligned on values and mission as much as our full time VIAneers.

Want a sneak peak at Power Up week? Watch our Day 1 Kick-off video where we cover VIA’s mission.

Hey, 2022!

2022 will be a great year for VIAneers. To keep up with exponential customer growth, we already have three new hires starting in January on our technical team and have aggressive hiring plans across our offices globally.

We feel confident that we have the foundation in place for our next few hundred hires. Some of our processes date back to previous successful companies and are proven in diverse and challenging environments. 

Always staying agile, we look forward to the ways our new growth and team members will continue to spark our creative expansion of our VIAneers program. It is the part of the job our People and Operations team loves the most – and we see it pay off in the many successful commercial and technology milestones we achieved this year. We look forward to sharing more about them next! #lovein=loveout

VIA Named One of the Most Innovative Analytics Companies in Massachusetts by Data Magazine

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Data Magazine spotlights VIA in a list of the Most Innovative Analytics Startups & Companies in Massachusetts. VIA was selected from a range of companies, including well-known brands like HubSpot and Rapid7, based on performance in innovation, growth, management, and impact on society. At VIA, we are committed to upholding this title both in Massachusetts and worldwide as we continue to work with power providers, clean energy companies, and governments to overcome barriers to data and AI integration.

To read the full announcement from Data Magazine, you can visit their website here.

Switzerland’s Top Innovation Booster Grants VIA New Energy Project

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VIA maintains Swiss market momentum with funding to impact country’s decarbonization goals

SOMERVILLE, Mass., November 18, 2021 — Continuing its track record for innovation in Switzerland, VIA, the leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) for data privacy, integration, and analysis, announced today that it has been awarded funding from the nation’s top innovation booster, Energy Lab. Developed in collaboration with research partner Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts (HSLU), the project, “Insights Marketplace – Powering Up Your Data for Decarbonisation,” was selected through a competitive judging process and is a testament to the company’s deepening impact on the Swiss energy market.

“Making a lasting impact on Switzerland’s clean energy transition goes beyond a single solution or technology. It requires the ongoing commitment of an entire community. We’re thrilled to be part of this innovation ecosystem, and our COO and Switzerland board member, Kate Ravanis, and I are looking forward to driving further collaboration with VIA Insights Market,” said VIA’s CEO, Colin Gounden, who will be also presenting the project at Energy Lab’s Un(Conference) on November 25, 2021, in Switzerland. The event will be another opportunity for an exchange of ideas and community building to commence.

The project highlights VIA Insights Market™, which debuted globally earlier this fall in Switzerland at Energy Data Hackdays in Brugg, Switzerland. VIA Insights Market enables power providers to test and acquire AI and other analytical services faster and more securely than any other alternative. By applying Insights Market to the problem, the need for repeated training of artificial intelligence (AI) models is reduced. At the same time, privacy and security are enhanced as the solution brings code to the data, removing the need for storage of data in multiple locations.

Sem Mattli, managing director of Switzerland Innovation Park Central, which facilitates the Energy Lab, added: “Collaboration is key to accelerating innovation. Through VIA Insights Market, researchers and companies alike can train and deploy AI models on data previously unavailable due to geographic or regulatory constraints while power companies maintain full confidentiality of their data. The application has the power to save Swiss utilities hundreds of hours in data integration costs, while building a bridge that enables distributed energy resources to be on the grid.”

Follow the latest from VIA by visiting https://www.solvewithvia.com/latest/ or on social media, including LinkedIn and @solvewithvia on Twitter and Instagram.

About VIA
90% of the world’s data is trapped. VIA makes it accessible. Trusted by leading government agencies and clean energy companies around the globe, VIA’s secure, digital collaboration platform overcomes the most common barriers to AI: lack of data, data quality issues, and data privacy concerns. By bringing AI to data 100 times faster than alternatives and with the highest level of cybersecurity, VIA’s platform is the driving force to make communities of all kinds cleaner, safer, and more equitable. VIA is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a technology center in Montreal, Quebec, and European offices in Denmark and Switzerland. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com

 

Europe’s Largest Utility Spotlights Partnership with VIA to Lead Energy Transition

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Innovators Featured in Article on Bridging Power Company Data and AI

VIA is proud to be featured in an article by our partner and Europe’s largest energy utility, Enel. The article, which is published as a success story on Enel’s website, examines data’s critical role in powering the energy transition and the challenges many power companies face in tapping into this precious resource. Highlighting the partnership between VIA and Enel X, Enel’s demand response business line, Enel explores the innovations, including our TAC™ platform and SWEET™ technology, that are helping it bridge data with AI to overcome these barriers. With SWEET, Enel X is able to automate data cleaning and wrangle thousands of data files from Enel X customers in just minutes — which otherwise may have taken hours for a data scientist to manipulate manually.

We look forward to continued collaboration with Enel X as we pave the way to a clean energy future, together. As Kate Ravanis, COO of VIA, concludes in the piece: “Anyone can get lucky and make something new once. For us, we strive to find a faster, smarter, cleaner way of doing everything, all the time.”

To read the full article by Enel X, visit their website here.

U.S. Air Force Taps VIA for Data-Driven Infrastructure Decision-Making at Tyndall Air Force Base

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SOMERVILLE, Mass., November 4, 2021  — VIA, the leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) for data privacy, integration, and analysis, announced today that the United States Air Force (U.S. Air Force) awarded the company a new contract with Tyndall Air Force Base (Tyndall AFB). The contract was a result of VIA participating in the Revolutionizing Flightline Operations Challenge run by the U.S. Air Force’s flagship innovation unit, AFWERX. VIA was selected out of more than 140 of the world’s leading technology providers and innovators competing in the same challenge category.

Expanding VIA’s partnership with the U.S. Air Force, the contract highlights the increasing demand for VIA’s AI for infrastructure application, JARVIS™. In the past year, JARVIS has supported over $200M in infrastructure maintenance and repair decisions at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Tyndall AFB, located near Panama City, Florida, will immediately begin using VIA’s fast, secure, and intuitive JARVIS application to improve airfield maintenance and repair.  

Tyndall AFB is the lead facility for the Air Force’s Installation of the Future program. After Hurricane Michael destroyed much of the air base in 2018, Congress directed that Tyndall AFB should be rebuilt to serve as a template for refurbishing and building U.S. air bases worldwide. Under the terms of its contract with VIA, Tyndall AFB, in partnership with the U.S. Air Force Civil Engineering Center (AFCEC), will also integrate JARVIS into the overall Installation of the Future system architecture so that the application will become available across the U.S. Air Force.

Major General Kimberly Crider, a recently retired two-star general from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) who served as Chief Data Officer for the U.S. Air Force until 2020, added: “Data is essential for DOD leadership to make mission-critical decisions and ensure that installation infrastructure remains safe, mission-ready, and comfortable for all personnel. As the base of the future, Tyndall and its evaluation is a logical step along the path to adopting JARVIS enterprise-wide. A DOD-wide adoption will ensure the Air Force can effectively and efficiently sustain essential infrastructure at all of its domestic and overseas air bases for decades to come.”

VIA’s Joe Babiec presented JARVIS to the U.S. Air Force at the invitation-only AFWERX Showcase in Nevada in September 2021.

Designed by airmen for airmen, the solution solves a critical pain point for the U.S. Air Force not resolved by other analytics tools. VIA’s Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, Joe Babiec, who represented VIA in the challenge, explained: “JARVIS routinely saves Air Force civil engineers time and money. Before, they would spend days following complicated manual procedures to prepare a report for their leadership. JARVIS automates all of the Excel and data science tasks so that engineers can generate reports in minutes and with the same ease as using an application on a smartphone. Now they can focus on maintenance and repair work as they were trained, while leadership has the insights to inform strategic decisions about whether to expand, maintain, or replace billions of dollars of critical air base infrastructure.”

VIA’s technology will help Tyndall AFB commanders make faster, better, data-driven decisions about how to keep air base infrastructure safe, mission-ready, and comfortable while saving taxpayer dollars. VIA’s TAC™ platform brings speed, security, and simplicity to make JARVIS 100 times faster than any other infrastructure decision-making support system and holds the DOD’s top cybersecurity accreditation. 

Follow the latest from VIA by visiting https://www.solvewithvia.com/latest/ or on social media, including LinkedIn and @solvewithvia on Twitter and Instagram.

About VIA

90% of the world’s data is trapped. VIA makes it accessible. Trusted by leading government agencies and clean energy companies around the globe, VIA’s secure, digital collaboration platform overcomes the most common barriers to AI: lack of data, data quality issues, and data privacy concerns. By bringing AI to data 100 times faster than alternatives and with the highest level of cybersecurity, VIA’s platform is the driving force to make communities of all kinds cleaner, safer, and more equitable. VIA is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a technology center in Montreal, Quebec, and European offices in Denmark and Switzerland. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com.

VIA Becomes New Member of RISE Consortium

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The world’s profound energy and climate crises cannot be solved by a single organization. That’s why VIA is proud to join The Resilient Infrastructure + Secure Energy [RISE] Consortium to address these critical issues. Together with more than 300 industry leaders and organizations, we are working with the federal government to accelerate energy and infrastructure modernization. Read more about the RISE Consortium here and look out for updates on our social media pages: LinkedIn and @solvewithvia on Twitter and Instagram.

Switzerland Recognizes VIA’s Extraordinary Growth Trajectory with National Award

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Clean Energy Innovator Honored Alongside Moderna and Benchling

Pictured above (left to right): Kate Ravanis, Co-Founder and COO, VIA; Markus Börlin, Ambassador, Consul General of Switzerland; Colin Gounden, Co-Founder and CEO, VIA.


Together with innovators Moderna and Benchling, VIA received Switzerland Global Enterprise’s 2021 Tell Award for its contributions to the Swiss economy and community. Since its inception, more than 50 of America’s most innovative and fastest growth companies – including Biogen, Google, and Microsoft –  have been recognized with this prestigious national award. VIA executives Kate Ravanis and Colin Gounden celebrated the distinction at a private ceremony in Boston with Swiss dignitaries.

“Switzerland has a worldwide reputation for its commitment to clean energy adoption and data privacy, two areas closely aligned with VIA’s own mission,” VIA COO and Switzerland board member Kate Ravanis said. “This award is proof of our impact on the market as we provide the technology to overcome barriers to data and protect privacy. We’re proud to be recognized alongside such a strong group of innovators and look forward to continued collaboration with the Swiss government, academia, and power industry.”

As the world’s only blockchain that is cybersecurity-approved by the U.S. Department of Defense, VIA is committed to bringing the highest levels of data security and accelerating Switzerland’s clean energy goals. The announcement comes only a week after the launch of VIA Insights Market™, which made its public debut at Energy Data Hackdays in Brugg, Switzerland. VIA Insights Market enables power providers to accelerate their transition to clean energy technologies through faster testing and acquisition of AI. VIA’s R&D partner Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts served as a beta user of the platform. To support its growth across Europe, VIA recently opened an office at the Switzerland Innovation Park Central in Zug.

For more information about the Tell Awards, read the press release from Swiss Global Enterprise.

Pictured above (left to right): Sophie Cerny, Trade Commissioner for Innovation; Lukas Sieber, Executive Director USA, Greater Zurich Area; Michelle Abboud, Vice President – North America, Lucerne Business; Colin Gounden, Co-Founder and CEO, VIA; Markus Börlin, Ambassador, Consul General of Switzerland; Kate Ravanis, Co-Founder and COO, VIA; Daniel Bangser, Trade Commissioner for Investment; Benjamin Bollmann, CEO, Swissnex Boston.

 

It’s official! VIA team members presented with the Tell Award at VIA’s office in Somerville, Mass.

Pictured above (left to right): Joe Babiec, SVP of Strategic Initiatives, VIA; Kate Ravanis, Co-Founder and COO, VIA; Colin Gounden, Co-Founder and CEO, VIA; Daniel Bangser, Trade Commissioner for Investment; Adam Eisenman, VP, Public Sector, VIA.

 

About VIA

VIA is powering the clean energy revolution. Working with the world’s leading utilities, clean energy companies, and government agencies, VIA’s software overcomes the most common barriers to AI: lack of data, data quality issues, and data privacy concerns. As a result, VIA’s software accelerates the AI required for the clean energy transition. VIA also provides the bridge that enables EVs, battery storage, demand response, and distributed energy resources to be on the grid. VIA is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a technology center in Montreal, Quebec. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com.

VIA Removes Barriers to AI for Power Providers with Global Launch of VIA Insights Market™

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VIA introduces new solution at Energy Data Hackdays in Brugg, Switzerland

SOMERVILLE, Mass., October 7, 2021  — VIA, the leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) for data privacy, integration, and analysis, today announced the global launch of VIA Insights Market™. VIA Insights Market enables power providers to test and acquire AI and other analytical services faster and more securely than any other alternative. The market, which debuted internationally at Energy Data Hackdays in Brugg, Switzerland in September, brings AI models to previously trapped data to accelerate the transition to clean energy. 

“The power industry is rapidly evolving. To keep up, every energy analyst we hear from needs a faster way to analyze their data. At the same time, they also need ways to meet increasing consumer and regulatory demands, such as GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California,” said Colin Gounden, CEO of VIA. “We see VIA Insights Market becoming the power industry standard for bringing AI to data as we solve the biggest challenges articulated by industry experts.”

VIA Insights Market addresses the need to automate manual data wrangling and formatting processes and with the world’s leading cybersecurity. It works by bringing an analyst’s code in a controlled and auditable way to each datasets’ location, runs analysis there, and returns only authorized answers back to the energy analyst. There is no data transfer; the data remains with its owner. 

Antonios Papaemmanouil, head of the electrical engineering institute at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) added: “The implementation of smart grids is based mainly on information exchange and knowledge extracted from data. Power companies and utilities are looking for new ways to analyze data and create business value. IT policy and privacy rules are often the biggest barrier. After significant testing as co-developers and early users of the solution, we at HSLU are recommending using VIA Insights Market.” 

HSLU was also a first user of the VIA Insights Market. The solution then made its first public debut at Energy Data Hackdays, where participants included analysts, programmers, multidisciplinary students, and energy industry experts, who took part in a challenge presented by VIA.

VIA Insights Market is powered by Trusted Analytics Chain™ (TAC™) platform, which has three issued patents and 12 pending patents filed for VIA-developed techniques in the field of privacy-protected federated analysis (i.e., simultaneous, secure analysis of multiple distinct datasets). Protected with the highest level of IT and software security in the industry, the same military-grade cybersecurity and data protections that are used by VIA for the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) are used in VIA Insights Market, undergoing continuous cybersecurity testing by the DOD. 

“Data and analytics are key to meeting Switzerland’s commitment to clean energy. We need access to more data as the fuel for digitalization. At the same time, we must ensure the privacy of our citizens’ data and improve cybersecurity protections,” said Matthias Galus, head of the digital innovation office at the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) during his keynote address at Energy Data Hackdays.


Pictured above: A user view from VIA Insights Market’s interface.

 

A free 30-day trial of VIA Insights Market will be available to select users beginning November 1, 2021. Register now at https://www.solvewithvia.com/insights-market/. 

Follow the latest from VIA by visiting https://www.solvewithvia.com/latest/ or on social media, including LinkedIn and @solvewithvia on Twitter and Instagram.

About VIA

VIA is powering the clean energy revolution. Working with the world’s leading power providers, clean energy companies, and government agencies, VIA’s software overcomes the most common barriers to AI: lack of data, data quality issues, and data privacy concerns. As a result, VIA’s software accelerates the AI required for the clean energy transition. VIA also provides the bridge that enables EVs, battery storage, demand response, and distributed energy resources to be on the grid. VIA is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a technology center in Montreal, Quebec, and European offices in Denmark and Switzerland. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com.

VIA Moves Somerville Headquarters to Accommodate Growing Team

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Pictured above [left to right]: Top – Adam Eisenman, Kate Ravanis, Kevin McSweeney, Steve Patton, Becky McClements, Joe Babiec, and Annvie Nguyen; Bottom – Jackie Finn, Colin Gounden, Kristen Merrill, and Taylor Curran.

 

It’s official: To accommodate rapid team and customer growth, VIA, the leading provider of AI for data privacy, data integration, and data analysis, has moved to a new location in its home base of Somerville, Mass. The VIA team in Somerville, whose size has more than doubled in less than a year, is now headquartered at 49R Day Street. 

The new office will support the expanding commercial team, with new job openings in the energy and government sectors to complement the move. 

“VIA is thrilled to support our growing customer base across sectors — and, from the city where it all started,” said Colin Gounden, President and CEO. 

For a behind-the-scenes look into the new space, follow VIA on LinkedIn or @solvewithvia on Twitter and Instagram.

Pictured above: VIA’s new office space

Pictured below: VIA CEO Colin Gounden welcomes team to Somerville headquarters.

About VIA

VIA is powering the clean energy revolution. Working with the world’s leading power providers, clean energy companies, and government agencies, VIA’s software overcomes the most common barriers to AI: lack of data, data quality issues, and data privacy concerns. As a result, VIA’s software accelerates the AI required for the clean energy transition. VIA also provides the bridge that enables EVs, battery storage, demand response, and distributed energy resources to be on the grid. VIA is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a technology center in Montreal, Quebec, and European offices in Denmark and Switzerland. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com.

Jackie Finn Interviewed for Profile of a Founder Blog

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VIA’s VP of Marketing, Jackie Finn, was featured in The Tech Tribune blog series “Profile of a Founder.” The Tech Tribune recently named VIA “2021 Best Tech Startups in Somerville” for the second consecutive year. Read their Q&A interview to hear Jackie’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs and discover the turning point that transformed VIA from just a startup data science company to the AI and blockchain leader we are today.

The Startup Pill Names VIA to Best Analytics Companies List

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Thank you to The Startup Pill for including VIA on their list of this year’s Best Predictive Analytics Startups in the U.S. We were proud to be featured alongside cutting edge AI companies across the globe. The Startup Pill selected companies based on innovation (ideas, route to market, product), growth and strategy, management, and societal impact. At VIA, we believe that using AI, we can have a smarter and cleaner future.

Enechange Insight Program Selects VIA For Inaugural Cohort

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VIA is proud to be one of 21 companies selected as part of the inaugural ENECHANGE Insight Ventures (EIV) cohort. Each company selected for the cohort brings unique tools to help Japan achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. According to EIV, companies were selected based on their “technology, size, market traction, timeframe for a prospective collaboration, and subscribers’ interest.” 

Learn more about Enechange and our fellow cohort members on their website.

VIA Strengthens Presence in Western Europe with Swiss Office and Local Advisor

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The AI platform innovator selected intelligent building center of excellence Zug and will expand research work with HSLU

ZUG, Switzerland, June 9, 2021 — VIA, a global trailblazer in AI and privacy-preserving software for the energy industry, today announced it has opened an office in Switzerland, further cementing its role in the acceleration of Switzerland’s clean energy transition goals. The new office, strategically located in the canton of Zug, will support the company’s growth across the European Union, including France, Germany, and Austria. VIA chose the Switzerland Innovation Park Central as it is the preeminent intelligent building innovation hub.

“Switzerland is a global leader in clean energy adoption. The country also carries some of the world’s strictest privacy regulations. Its goal to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 is ambitious, and we are excited to be part of making it achievable,” said Kate Ravanis, Chief Operating Officer and Swiss Board Member at VIA. “Our team will play an important role in equipping the Swiss energy sector with the technology to overcome barriers to data and protect privacy, and are excited to bring our patented blockchain application, Trusted Analytics Chain™ to the Crypto Valley.”

To enhance VIA’s operating capabilities, the company named local industry veteran, Andrew Bright, as advisor to the office. In this role, Mr. Bright, who joined VIA’s Advisory Board last year, will draw on his deep knowledge of the region and its unique energy and privacy challenges. He brings 25 years of experience in the sustainable energy and transportation sectors, including 12 years as a senior executive at ABB Power Grids.

VIA will expand its Swiss presence and partnership with Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), focused primarily in the areas of data science, AI, and clean energy technology, and their interaction with the region’s strict data privacy laws. In 2020, VIA and HSLU won funding from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) for its KnowlEDGE project to develop edge computing capabilities on advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), enabling increased data privacy.

Liv Minder, Director Investment Promotion, Switzerland Global Enterprise added, “The clean energy industry has carved out a place in Switzerland, which in turn is providing strong impetus for growth. Given its mission to drive the adoption of clean energy, and leadership in the energy data privacy sector, VIA is warmly welcomed to our business ecosystem.”

VIA, which recently announced a $10M Series A investment round, anticipates key hires over the next several months as well as major customer and partner announcements. Follow the latest from VIA by visiting www.solvewithvia.com/latest/ or on social @solvewithvia.

About VIA

VIA is powering the clean energy revolution. Working with the world’s leading utilities, clean energy companies, and government agencies, VIA’s software overcomes the most common barriers to AI: lack of data, data quality issues, and data privacy concerns. As a result, VIA’s software accelerates the AI required for the clean energy transition. VIA also provides the bridge that enables EVs, battery storage, demand response, and distributed energy resources to be on the grid. VIA is headquartered in Somerville, Massachusetts, with a technology center in Montreal, Quebec. For more information, please visit www.solvewithvia.com.