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SmartHelio today announced a strategic investment from deeptech fund quantumEDGE Ventures. The partnership aims to establish SmartHelio’s presence across the Middle East while accelerating its global expansion across utility-scale solar, battery storage, and distributed energy infrastructure.
Through quantumEDGE Ventures’ strategic network within the energy industry and its deep regional market access in Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the collaboration aims to position SmartHelio as a key AI infrastructure player supporting the next generation of autonomous energy systems.
Earlier this year, SmartHelio launched GAIA, its AI agent designed specifically for energy infrastructure operations. Already deployed with customers globally, GAIA autonomously analyzes operational data, detects faults, prioritizes issues based on financial impact, and launches operational workflows effectively acting as an autonomous Network Operations Center (NOC) for renewable energy portfolios. The platform is already helping customers automate up to 90% of daily monitoring and reporting workflows, recover 3–10% additional energy production, and significantly improve operational efficiency.
Unlike generic AI copilots, SmartHelio combines physics-informed intelligence, energy-domain expertise, explainability, and governance specifically designed for critical infrastructure environments. The company is transforming renewable asset management from reactive monitoring into autonomous operations.
As energy systems become increasingly decentralized and complex, operators face growing challenges from fragmented software, labor shortages, and the integration of storage and distributed energy resources. SmartHelio believes the next generation of energy infrastructure will increasingly rely on autonomous AI systems capable of continuously operating, optimizing, and coordinating energy assets at scale.
SmartHelio’s long-term vision is to create the autonomous intelligence layer coordinating future energy infrastructure - from energy optimization and maintenance orchestration to AI-driven field operations involving robots, drones, and distributed autonomous systems.
SmartHelio is already trusted by global energy leaders including Shell, Dominion Energy, ENEOS, NTT, Tata Power, Mitsui Fudosan, Verbund, and Schneider Electric. The company currently supports more than 8 GW of energy assets globally and is rapidly expanding across the United States, Europe, Africa, India, Japan, and now the Middle East.
“This partnership is an important milestone in our journey to build autonomous AI infrastructure for the global energy sector,” said Govinda Upadhyay, Founder and CEO of SmartHelio. “The Middle East is becoming one of the most important regions for energy transition, AI, and digital infrastructure. With our enhanced product capabilities and quantumEDGE Ventures’ deep understanding of deployable use cases in the GCC, we aim to accelerate the deployment of secure and governed AI systems that can autonomously manage and optimize renewable energy infrastructure at scale.”
SmartHelio is backed by marquee investors like Y Combinator, Pegasus Tech Ventures, ACE Ventures, Serpentine Ventures, and Collab Fund, and will showcase GAIA and its autonomous operations platform during Intersolar Europe 2026 in Munich, where the company will demonstrate how AI agents are transforming renewable energy operations from reactive monitoring into autonomous infrastructure management.
For more details on the funding, please refer to the coverages on SmartHelio, Greater Geneva Bern Area, DealRoom and PV Tech.
About SmartHelio
SmartHelio is a Swiss AI company building the autonomous operating layer for renewable energy infrastructure. Its AI platform enables energy companies to autonomously monitor, diagnose, optimize, and manage solar, battery, and distributed energy assets at scale. Backed by Y Combinator, collab fund, Ace & company, Serpentine fund, Pegasus tech venture, Gaingels and leading climate investors, SmartHelio currently supports more than 8 GW of energy assets globally.
About quantumEDGE Ventures
quantumEDGE Ventures is a deeptech climate-tech venture capital firm supporting global high-impact technology companies in the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus by bridging access to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) markets.