Bolo AI is Building the Operating System for Heavy Industries With an $8.1 Million Seed Round
Bolo AI is the AI system of action for heavy industries, a $20 trillion sector that's long been overlooked by modern software. It unlocks the knowledge buried across procedures, documents, and legacy systems so teams can act quickly, safely, and with confidence. The result: reduced downtime, improved safety margins, and smarter, faster operations across the industrial value chain.
Bolo AI was co-founded by Diti Sood and Dr. Lalit Jain. Sood began her career as a field engineer with SLB, the world's largest oilfield services company. She spent five years working on oil and gas field sites across the UAE and Qatar, often in extreme conditions — and was the first woman in her district to take on rig and offshore jobs. At times on the job with few accommodations, she slept in her truck between shifts.
'I've handled radioactive tools and explosives, worked 24-hour shifts and longer in 120°F heat, and relied on outdated manuals and siloed systems to make critical decisions,' said Sood, CEO and co-founder of Bolo AI. 'That gave me deep respect for the people doing this work — and a front-row seat to envisioning tools and products to enable them to make the best decisions every single time no matter the challenges facing them. Bolo brings AI into the daily flow of work — helping technical and frontline teams make faster, more confident decisions in operations, maintenance, engineering, safety, project management and more...'
After earning her MBA from Harvard Business School, Sood led go-to-market strategy for enterprise AI products. Jain, co-founder of Bolo AI, is a machine learning expert with more than 15 years of experience building applied AI systems across cybersecurity, finance, and automation — bringing deep technical grounding to Bolo's platform.
'Diti and Lalit are building the infrastructure to make critical operations in heavy industries more intelligent and efficient with AI,' said Helen Min, venture partner at True Ventures. "The founding team has the unique talent, technical ability, and required customer empathy to transform an industry previously very underserved by technology."
Bolo AI counts a Fortune 500 industrial firm and the largest oil refinery in the U.S. as early partners collaborating on both a strategic pilot program and proof of concept. With Seed funding, Bolo AI will grow its engineering and go-to-market teams, deepen integrations with enterprise systems, and accelerate deployments across energy, utility, and industrial operations.
About Bolo AI
Bolo AI is the daily AI system of action for the people who operate the world's infrastructure — in the field, plant, or office. By unlocking knowledge buried across documents, procedures, and legacy systems, Bolo helps industrial teams act quickly, work safely, and drive better outcomes. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, with an engineering hub in Bangalore, India.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
UPI
an hour ago
- UPI
Trump's Fed nominee Stephen Miran critical of China monetary policies
1 of 2 | Stephen Miran, President Trump's nominee for the Federal Reserve Board, walks outside the White House on Tuesday. Photo by Francis Chung/UPI | License Photo Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Stephen Miran is President Donald Trump's nominee to become the Federal Reserve's next governor, but his name is largely unknown to the American public. Miran, 41, visited the White House on Tuesday for reasons unknown, but his candidacy to temporarily fill a vacancy on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors likely will make Miran's name more familiar with those who pay attention to the Federal Reserve's lending rate. Miran is a Harvard-educated tariffs advocate with a doctorate in economics who views China as rigging the global monetary system to ensure it has a competitive edge over the United States, according to a recent Fortune profile of Miran. Miran told Fortune that, while working as a currency-focused economist on Wall Street in his late 20s, he noticed China's monetary policies devalued its renminbi currency while boosting the value of the U.S. dollar. "The currency markets are a bit of the wild wild West," he told Fortune. "All sorts of things happen that shouldn't happen in an economics textbook." Miran said nations such as China heavily manage their respective currencies, which makes global markets "behave in weird ways." China's monetary policies cause the U.S. dollar to be overvalued while undervaluing its renminbi, he explained. The result, he said, is a U.S. trade deficit with China due to increased exports from China to the United States while greatly reducing the flow of U.S.-made goods to China. China ranks as the world's second-largest economy, while the United States remains the world's economic leader. China has erected market barriers for U.S.-made goods by imposing tariff rates that are higher than the U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made goods, stealing Internet technologies and utilizing other "non-market barriers," Miran said. "Watching the accumulation of Chinese currency reserves in dollars accruing from exports was absolutely eye-opening," he told Fortune. China's monetary and trade policies robbed the United States of jobs while punishing it for being the world's largest economy, Miran said. Miran chairs the Council of Economic Advisers and likely will become the Federal Reserve's next governor for a temporary term through January. "He has been with me from the beginning of my second term," Trump said when announcing Miran's nomination. "His expertise in the world of economics is unparalleled," Trump added. "He will do an outstanding job." If confirmed by the Senate, Miran will replace former Federal Reserve Gov. Adriana Kugler, who was nominated by President Joe Biden in 2023 and was to serve until January. Kugler resigned her position as one of seven Fed governors without saying why and ended her governorship on Friday. Trump suggested Kugler resigned because she dissented from the Federal Reserve's recent announcement that it would maintain its current lending rate of between 4.25% and 4.5% instead of lowering it. Miran would serve the remainder of the term for Kugler's vacant seat and would be eligible for a subsequent 14-year term, which is the standard term for a member of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. The Senate is in recess but will reconvene in early September and would vote on Miran's nomination prior to the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee meeting that is scheduled Sept. 16-17. Trump said he likely will nominate someone else to permanently replace Kugler. The president also will seek a replacement for Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, whose term ends in May. Trump has contemplated firing Powell due to the Federal Reserve not reducing its current lending rate since shortly before the Nov. 5 general election. Federal officers, National Guard patrol Washington President Donald Trump announced he is placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and deploy the National Guard to the district to assist in crime prevention. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's regulatory reset leaves crypto privacy tools like Tornado Cash in the lurch
Sometimes, amid the memecoins and pay-for-access scandals, it can be difficult to remember that the crypto industry was built on the principles of privacy and autonomy. The elusive Satoshi Nakamoto released the Bitcoin white paper in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, after all. Even as Wall Street swallows blockchain technology whole, the core is still a spirit of disintermediation. I joined Fortune in August 2022, the same month that the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Tornado Cash, a virtual currency mixer that allowed users to input their (very traceable) cryptocurrency holdings and receive an anonymous output. The software, predictably, became a favorite of terrorist organizations and North Korean-affiliated hacking groups, but it also embodied the cypherpunk ideology that birthed the crypto sector. OFAC's action created novel questions, such as whether a piece of code, rather than a person or organization, can be sanctioned. It also drew the ire of privacy advocates, who argued that internet users should have the right to own and send digital cash without government interference, just as offline people can with physical cash (to a degree). These, more than crypto bros trying to drive up the price of their tokens through sex toy-related stunts, are the fascinating dilemmas raised by blockchain technology, and what sets it apart from other forms of financial technology. (And as much as I hoped topics like Tornado Cash would dominate my coverage, Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX empire collapsed two months later.) A year after the sanctions, the Department of Justice brought charges against the creators of Tornado Cash, with one, Roman Storm, arrested in the United States. This was a tricky case for the crypto industry to get behind. The DOJ's indictment made clear that the founders knew their software's main utility was to help money launderers, including North Korea's Lazarus Group, and they were earning millions of dollars off the platform through their own proprietary token. In a recurring segment I like to call 'Are you taking notes on a criminal f***ing conspiracy,' one founder admitted over text that they had to relinquish control over the software to make it seem like they weren't the owners. As one former DOJ prosecutor told me at the time, 'These are pretty egregious facts.' But many powerful voices in the crypto industry, including the venture giant Paradigm, still threw their weight behind Storm, arguing that the government's case eroded the idea of privacy-preserving software and was in direct contradiction to previous guidance issued by the financial crimes division of the Treasury Department. Storm's initial trial, which was held in the same courthouse that hosted Bankman-Fried, wrapped up last week. Though he avoided two of the more serious charges, the jury still found him guilty on one, related to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. His advocates are vowing to fight it, arguing that the decision sets a dangerous precedent for the future of privacy software. The more interesting question is why the case was allowed to continue under the Trump administration, which has broadly embraced the crypto sector—or at least the elements more tied to financial gains. The Securities and Exchange Commission abandoned cases against Coinbase and Justin Sun, and the DOJ issued a memo announcing the end of 'regulation by prosecution' against the blockchain industry. They even dropped one of the lesser charges against Storm about registration. But the core charge—that a developer should be responsible for non-custodial software—was allowed to continue. The refrain since Trump returned to office has been that, thanks to the lax new regulatory approach, crypto enforcement is off the table. Unfortunately for Storm, it seems that's restricted to memecoins. Leo SchwartzX: @leomschwartzEmail: Submit a deal for the Term Sheet newsletter here. Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today's newsletter. Subscribe here. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Self-made multimillionaire behind $4 billion Skims empire says she was ‘using AI like a 42-year-old woman'—until Mark Cuban gave her a wake-up call
Self-made multimillionaire Emma Grede has built billion-dollar brands with the Kardashians (including shapewear and clothing brand company Skims), sits on the board for the Obama Foundation, and has just teamed up with tennis champion Coco Gauff on a mentorship campaign with UPS. But while scaling businesses and mentoring others come naturally to her, Grede admits she needed a mentor moment of her own when it came to artificial intelligence. And that moment came courtesy of fellow Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban, Grede exclusively tells Fortune. The British-born entrepreneur Emma Grede, best known as the founding partner of Kim Kardashian's $4 billion shapewear empire Skims and the CEO of denim brand Good American, has built a reputation on spotting cultural shifts before they hit the mainstream. When her and Khloe Kardashian's Good American denim line dropped, it made $1 million on day one, making it the biggest denim launch in apparel history. Grede has helped redefine inclusion in retail and became the first Black female investor on Shark Tank—all before turning 45. Now she's bringing that same playbook to small businesses through a new UPS campaign alongside tennis star Coco Gauff. The initiative sees Grede mentoring creators of emerging female-led brands and offering one-on-one coaching to help them scale. But while mentoring others comes naturally to her, Grede admits that when it came to AI, she was the one who needed a pep talk—and fellow Shark Tank star Mark Cuban was the one who gave her the push to come to grips with the new technology. In an exclusive interview with Fortune, Grede talked about an episode of her hit podcast show Aspire that hadn't aired yet, where the two sat down and compared their AI usage. 'I was already kind of getting there, but if I'm really honest, that episode where we really delved into AI gave me a new urgency around how I use AI,' she recalled, adding that Cuban had a staggering 60 AI apps on his phone. 'Yeah, he gave me a kick.' As soon as the recording wrapped up, she said that she started looking into AI courses at the Wharton School and Harvard for this fall. 'I need to figure this out, because I'm using AI like a 42-year-old woman,' Grede candidly admitted while laughing. Grede gave her staff a cash bonus for using AI—long before she realized she was behind Grede isn't completely new to AI. In fact, she was ahead of the curve when it came to encouraging AI adoption within her companies. 'About two years ago I put a note out in my office giving a cash bonus to anyone that uses AI in their work,' she explained, adding that the incentive was a big hit—especially with the marketing and finance teams. 'It changed the office. It changed the way people presented their work. It changed the way people did their work.' But as her Gen Z and thirtysomething staff embraced experimenting with ChatGPT and other new AI launches at the time, Grede admitted that she perhaps leaned too heavily on them. It meant that until recently, she's been using AI more as a search engine and leaving her staff to handle the rest. 'I was like, Emma, you need to sort that out.' It comes as many other CEOs are scrambling to appoint AI leaders, future-proof their business, and brace for change. Billionaire Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates says AI is moving at a speed that 'surprises' even him and that even if workers learn how to use the latest tech tools, they may still find themselves out of a job. Meanwhile, an ex-Google exec says CEOs are currently too busy 'celebrating' their efficiency gains to see they're next on AI's chopping board. But she's not using AI to make her more productive As one of America's richest self-made women—with a reported net worth of nearly $400 million and at least four major businesses to her name—Grede is clearly ruthlessly efficient. But in her eyes, AI isn't about squeezing even more productivity from her day. 'I'm probably the most productive person in the world. I don't know that I can be that more productive,' she said, noting that her time is mostly spent making high-stakes decisions—not executing tasks. 'There's no amount of AI that can help me with that.' But where it can help, she said, is in making smarter strategic choices and reshaping how she leads. 'I think it's a reframing of how we're going to do things,' Grede added. 'So much of my job is about making really big bets and decisions. And so if I can put data in places to optimize that decision making, I think that that's probably where I'm going to be using it most. 'When you start to think about my role as a merchant and as a planner, it's really those things that I think are going to fundamentally shift.' In her podcast episode with Cuban, which has since been released, the television personality and Dallas Mavericks owner had a stark warning for founders who don't embrace AI: 'You're f–ked…That's like saying, back in the day, 'I don't need to use a PC, I don't need to use the internet. I don't need a cell phone.'' He added, 'If you're an entrepreneur, or want to be an entrepreneur, start playing with it to get a sense for how it works, how to prompt. It becomes like having an entire staff of 1,000 business professors.' This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
