We started Petra to keep communities lit, healthy and connected during natural and man-made disasters. We believe that utilities should be undergrounded. But to accomplish this, we need better tools to bury infrastructure at scale.
We are solving one of the biggest problems in utility infrastructure today: how to underground utilities in the most difficult geologies using a single, integrated method. Our team is solely focused on building innovative technologies to bury utilities and enable new trenchless installations in nightmare geologies like hard rock, cobblestones, boulders, water-logged sand/soils, tar, and dense muds and clays.
What we've developed is the world's most versatile and green trenchless products on the market. With technology that bores utility tunnels though the most difficult geologies on earth, Petra's machines change the economics of undergrounding by de-risking even the most challenging utility construction projects.
We’ve led innovative product development teams at other ground breaking organizations including NASA, Intuitive Surgical, Carbon 3D, and Tesla. Over the last two decades, Petra's management team has raised over $100M+ for various robotics and smart hardware ventures, and led robotics and development teams in leading universities like Stanford and Purdue. With the addition of Roberto Zillante, Daniel Zillante and Craig Allan, Petra's management team has a combined 30 years of experience in the trenchless technology industry.
For years, Petra CEO and Co-Founder Kim Abrams watched her home state of California crumble under the pressure of natural disasters. After running air purifiers 24/7 for months at a time to keep her home air breathable in the face of unprecedented wildfires, and watching hurricanes tear through her parent's home on the eastern seaboard, enough was enough; she had to do something. She founded Petra to keep communities lit, safe and connected in the face of natural disasters and climate change. To do this, she resolved to figure out a way to bury the world's critical infrastructure. What Kim learned was that while burying critical infrastructure protects communities from natural and man-made threats, the world didn't have the right equipment to do so at scale.
With Petra, Kim founded her second robotics company to build technologies to bury infrastructure at scale. Petra is solving one of the biggest challenges in underground construction: how to bore utility tunnels through all geologies with a single method. After initially backing Petra as an early seed investor at Lemnos Labs, Shivani Torres joined forces as Chief Product Officer to help Petra build the future of utility infrastructure.
Above-ground utilities are vulnerable to natural and man-made threats. Petra is transforming grid infrastructure in hard and soft geologies, making undergrounding more accessible for all communities.
The damage to above-ground grid infrastructure during wildfires and storms can be catastrophic.We need new methods to protect life and property in the face of increasing disasters.
Today, MIT Technology Review unveiled its annual list of 35 innovators under 35, highlighting the remarkable talents shaping our future. Among this year's honorees is Shivani Torres, my cofounder, and Petra’s Chief Product Officer at Petra. I couldn’t be more proud and honored to build this company with Shivani. Because of her, Petra is transforming the way we underground utilities. Together, we're achieving our goal of making communities resilient by lowering the cost of undergrounding.
This blog post introduces the Petra Platform, the worlds first all-in-one trenchless solution capable of boring through all geologies using multiple boring modules using green power. This modular, flexible system revolutionizes underground utility construction, offering six unique modules for various ground conditions.
Trenchless technology and tunneling technology are often used interchangeably, but they have very different applications and require different construction technologies. We describe these differences between trenchless and tunneling in this post.
