Geosteering Technologies (also known as Geonavigation Technologies or GTI), a Russian developer of software solutions for well drilling, has raised $2 million in a Series B round of funding.
The round was led by AYR, a Moscow-based private equity and financial advisory firm, with participation from North Energy Ventures and Phystech Ventures, an earlier investor in the company.
The deal, which took place last month, has just been reported by Vedomosti. GTI’s CEO Sergey Stishenko told the business daily that the three funds had got a stake of around 30% in exchange for the funding obtained.
The company intends to use the money to develop new software solutions and to expand to the US and Middle-East markets.
The Geonaft software (Photo credit: GTI)
GTI claims that Geonaft, its sensor-aided software, allows to determine the stratigraphic position of a well while drilling, and forecast the changes in the structure formation. Analyzing this data, the software generates parameters in real time for further drilling in the right direction.
Thus oil and gas companies can minimize losses while drilling while making the process twice as fast, and increasing its profitability by up to five times, a Phystech Ventures representative told Vedomosti.
“In energy tech venture investment, the trend over the past three years is to shift from “classic” clean tech to energy efficiency solutions in the conventional energy sector, including oil and gas,” commented Sergey Yartsev, an investment manager at AYR.
This trend makes GTI an appealing investment target, he believes.
