How Egypt’s Pylon is “saving the planet” one smart meter at a time

Founded in 2017 by Ahmed Ashour and Omar Radi, Pylon is a smart infrastructure management platform providing a subscription-based “Smart Metering as a Service” (SMaaS) for electricity and water companies in emerging markets.

The startup provides a tailored end-to-end software solution that is adaptive to old and new metering technologies and helps reduce operational inefficiencies, improve revenue collection, and achieve a more efficient environmental footprint, at zero upfront cost. Pylon democratises smart grid infrastructure to energy and water distribution companies, enabling them to capture up to US$400 billion of losses and uncollected revenue. 

“Pylon’s mission is saving the planet, one smart meter at a time,” Ashour, the startup’s CEO, told Disrupt Africa. “We aim to help utilities seek improvements in revenue collection, reduce losses through waste and theft and achieve a more efficient environmental footprint through our Smart Metering as a Service subscriptions.”

The startup, which last year raised a US$19 million seed funding round and took part in the Y Combinator accelerator, has developed bespoke technology which incorporates data analysis and artificial intelligence to solve the unique challenges of electricity and water services in emerging markets. 

“Through detailed data collection and analysis, powered by our software, Pylon can identify systemic inefficiencies that providers can take immediate steps to address,” Ashour said.