AZX, a startup building bespoke AI solutions for customers that include utilities and energy companies, has raised a $6 million pre-seed round.
The Bellevue, Wash.-based business launched in October 2024, has grown to 20 employees, and its first quarter revenue spiked 10-fold compared to the same period last year.
“What makes AZX a little different is we’re not a product-centric company. We’re not a consultant-centric company. We’re a client-, problem- and transformation-centric company,” said Aaron Goldfeder, AZX CEO and co-founder. “So everything we do centers around their business.”
AZX is melding AI tools including analytics, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, digital twins, physics models, machine learning models and generative AI to build custom apps and models to fix internal business processes within a company’s operations. The products are designed to integrate into a client’s existing systems.
The company’s customers include Puget Sound Energy, CBRE, Trilliant, Franklin Energy and two undisclosed, investor-owned utilities.
Investors in the round are AI2 Incubator, SFV (Sustainable Future Ventures), Founders’ Co-op, Kompas, Powerhouse Ventures, Ascend and Stepchange Ventures as well as individual investors including Brian Janous, former vice president of energy at Microsoft.
The startups co-founders are:
- Goldfeder, who helped launch the scheduling platform company Meetingflow, which was acquired by Augment. He previously co-founded EnergySavvy, a Seattle startup that helped utilities manage their relationships with customers. It was acquired in 2019.
- Rich Evans, vice president of technology, who was chief technologist and a founder at Meetingflow.
- Michael Albrecht, chief operating officer and former COO at EnergySavvy.
All three also worked at Microsoft earlier in their careers.
The startup is a public benefit corporation and Goldfeder said the team is eager to help utilities, energy companies and others addressing climate-related challenges. He noted that losses from natural disasters worldwide hit $320 billion in 2024, while utilities need to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to modernize their electrical grids.
“All that needs help,” he said. “So we love being part of that solution.”
