We recently announced our $150M funding round, but I want to talk about something bigger, the challenges we're solving and why they matter more than ever.
Today's maintenance, reliability and operations teams are facing a perfect storm. The skilled labor shortage isn't coming, it's here. Economic uncertainty is reshaping global supply chains. These aren't separate challenges, they're interconnected pressures that demand a unified response.
The reality on factory and industrial facility floors
Walk into any factory or industrial facility today and you'll hear the same story: experienced technicians are retiring faster than new ones can be trained. The knowledge they've built over decades—how to diagnose that unusual vibration, which valve tends to stick, why that compressor acts up in humid weather—is walking out the door with them.
Traditional training takes months, sometimes years. Most companies can't afford that timeline. Meanwhile, equipment downtime costs industries $1.4 trillion annually, much of it from preventable knowledge gaps.
At the same time, external cost pressures are squeezing margins. When material costs and supply chain disruptions are beyond your control, the question becomes: How do you protect profitability and margins?
The answer lies in what you can control—your operations.
AI as the great equalizer
This is where AI changes everything, not by replacing human expertise, but by amplifying it while turning maintenance from a cost center into a competitive advantage. Our customers are already seeing this transformation with MaintainX CoPilot. Amfab Steel, Inc., a Design-Build/Design-Assist steel fabricator located in New Mexico, exemplifies this shift. According to Jeremiah Dotson, their Facility Maintenance Manager, MaintainX AI has made it significantly easier to digitize preventive maintenance workflows, allowing technicians to use CoPilot for accurate, real-time answers instead of digging through lengthy manuals and data. The platform functions like having an expert available 24/7 to guide teams through any task, quickly becoming a trusted resource that has substantially impacted both their maintenance operations and the training and onboarding of new technicians.
This approach transforms how organizations handle the dual challenge of knowledge transfer and operational efficiency, creating a system where AI serves as both a repository of institutional wisdom and an active problem-solving partner for maintenance teams.
Preserving knowledge while protecting margins
The labor shortage isn't just about training new people, it's about capturing irreplaceable insights before they walk out the door. Every retiring technician takes decades of expertise with them. AI helps us reverse that trend.
MaintainX’s AI learns from your specific equipment, your unique operating conditions, your team's successful solutions to past problems. It transforms tribal knowledge into institutional intelligence that scales across your entire organization. When your best technician retires, their expertise becomes part of your AI-powered knowledge base, continuously improving based on new experiences.
But the real impact shows in the numbers. While external pressures mount, our customers are offsetting these challenges by reducing unplanned downtime by up to 34% and cutting monthly maintenance costs by 32%. This isn't just about fixing machines faster, it's about preventing breakdowns before they happen.
From reactive to proactive
Today's economic uncertainties make operational excellence more essential than ever. The most resilient organizations we work with share one trait: they view disruption not as an obstacle, but as an opportunity to reevaluate fundamental operational approaches.
We're building technology that puts AI-driven insights directly into the hands of technicians on the shop floor and executives in the boardroom. Both are accountable for uptime, safety, and performance. Both benefit when institutional knowledge flows freely and learning accelerates.
This human-AI collaboration transforms maintenance from a reactive cost center into a proactive competitive advantage. It turns every maintenance interaction into a learning opportunity that benefits the entire organization.
Looking ahead
With this new funding, we're doubling down on AI capabilities that address both the labor shortage and economic pressures head-on. With our partners, we’re expanding our machine health monitoring to capture real-time operational data from any industrial sensor or control system. We're building more intuitive, AI-assisted workflows that help customers do more with existing teams.
But technology is only part of the equation. We're also investing in customer success, walking facility floors and speaking directly with maintenance and operational leaders to understand how AI can solve their most pressing challenges.
A heartfelt thank you
None of this would be possible without our customers who trust us with their most critical operations. You've shown us what works, what doesn't, and what's possible when AI meets operational excellence. Your feedback shapes every feature we build.
To our team members who believe in this mission and our investors who support this vision—thank you. You're helping us build technology that doesn't just improve efficiency metrics, but preserves knowledge, accelerates learning, and creates opportunities for the next generation of maintenance professionals.
We're not just building software. We're building a future where maintenance professionals have the tools they deserve—technology that's as capable and connected as they are. It’s time for every frontline professional to truly be the knowledge worker they always have been.
The journey continues. Let's keep building.
Join us in building that future
MaintainX is actively hiring for numerous roles and seeks talented individuals ready to join our mission of providing an AI-powered platform for maintenance professionals to keep the physical world running. We're looking for people passionate about solving real-world challenges—from preserving decades of institutional knowledge to helping maintenance professionals become the knowledge workers they've always been. Those interested in building the future of maintenance and asset management can search open roles and apply here.
Chris is a tech entrepreneur and angel investor with experience in buy-side finance and innovating in SaaS finance. Prior to co-founding MaintainX, he built, led, and sold Voo, a consumer start-up. Previously, he was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners. Chris holds a degree in Finance from McGill University and was the California McGill Alumni President.
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