This former PG&E engineer is building a ‘Google Maps for the underground’
CivilGrid, a startup founded by a former PG&E engineer, has raised $26 million to map underground utility infrastructure. The platform aggregates disparate data to help prevent costly and dangerous utility strikes during excavation.
Why it matters
Improving the accuracy of underground infrastructure mapping can significantly reduce construction delays, costs, and public safety risks associated with accidental utility damage.
Josh Mackanic left a 10-year engineering career at Pacific Gas and Electric because he kept thinking about what the utility company doesn’t know about what’s buried underground.
“I had a job that got shut down because a pipe was in the excavation [that] we didn’t know about. Fortunately, we saw it before we impacted it,” he told TechCrunch. “But then there was this three-day ordeal of running around [asking] like: ‘Whose pipe is this? Can we tap it? Can we not? What’s in it?’”
Mackanic eventually got the answer, but it took three days, a delay that cost $60,000.
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