DeTect technologies was founded in 2016 by IIT-Madras alumni Daniel Raj David, Harikrishnan AS, Karthik R and Tarun Mishra, along with professor Krishnan Balasubramanian. It was chosen as the winner of the ‘Best on Campus’ category at the ET Startup Awards last year.

Existing investors Bharath Innovation Fund, Axilor Ventures and BlueHill Capital Pvt. Ltd also took part in the latest round, DeTect said in a statement. The funds will be used to double employee count and expand in the UK and Europe, and for building manufacturing capability for mass production of its patented technology products, Gumps(an ultrasonic sensor) and Noctua(drone).

At present, the company has around 50 full-time employees with operations in Chennai, Bengaluru, Jamnagar and the UK (London and Aberdeen). The company is also in talks with clients from Singapore, Malaysia, the US, and Canada, Daniel Raj David, chief executive and co-founder of DeTect, said in an interview. “Our major growth will come from the market outside India,” he added.

The company has two major products – Gumps, a sensor that detects leakages and corrosion in oil or gas pipelines, and Notua, an industrial drone that inspects large volume assets such as boilers and stacks. The drone can also generate real-time report.

“Our goal here at DeTect Technologies is to leverage high end engineering talent, build deep technology, design cutting edge infrastructure and create high end patented solutions for asset risk monitoring and also estimating their life predictions. By developing sensor technology, drone technology, image processing and machine learning algorithms here in India, our technologies are focused on improving operational efficiencies for industries at large by helping them enhance monitoring and increase safety and accuracy,” said David.

The sensor and the drone reduce human efforts and can cut daily losses of a company by about INR 6 crore, David claimed.

Mridul Arora, managing director at Saif Partner said, “Industries are becoming automated, and Detect Technologies look to address the issue of large expenditures made on defects detected after they are formed. This is a global problem and Detect has unique products to address it.”