Accenture Acquires Industrial AI Consultancy Flutura

Global IT consulting firm Accenture has acquired industrial artificial intelligence (AI) company Flutura of Bangalore, India. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Related: See all M&A deals involving ESG and sustainability consulting, technology & software firms here.

Flutura helps customers to increase the performance of plants, refineries, and supply chains while also enabling clients to accomplish their net zero goals faster, Accenture asserted.

Flutura's AI platform is designed for Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) use cases in such markets as oil and gas, specialty chemicals, and heavy machinery manufacturing industries, according to the seller's LinkedIn profile.

Example Flutura customers include:

• TechnipFMC, Al Mansoori and GTT in oil and gas;
• Henkel in specialty chemicals; and
• Hitachi amongst heavy machinery OEMs.

Flutura, founded in 2012, has roughly 110 employees who specialize in industrial data science services for manufacturers and other asset-intensive companies, Accenture said. The seller also has operations in Palo Alto, Houston, Tokyo and Bangalore, according to a 2017 funding announcement.

Accenture Acquires Flutura: Executive Perspectives

In a prepared statement about the deal, Senthil Ramani, senior managing director and Accenture Applied Intelligence lead for Growth Markets, said: “Flutura democratizes AI for engineers, enabling manufacturing and other asset-intensive companies with the carbon intelligence to reduce emissions, energy consumption and lost output due to unplanned downtime of industrial assets. This acquisition will power industrial AI-led transformation for our clients globally and particularly in Australia, South-East Asia, Japan, Africa, India, Latin America and the Middle East.”

Added Krishnan Raman, CEO of Flutura: “Our AI platform enables engineers to respond with agility to everchanging market and operating conditions. We look forward to scaling this as part of Accenture and helping more industrial clients achieve high-value outcomes in their production operations.”

Previous Flutura Investors: Venture Capital Firms

Flutura in 2017 raised $7.5 million in Series A funding led by Vertex Ventures, and supported by Lumis Partners and The Hive. Flutura's valuation amid that funding round was not revealed.