Top Amazon partner C3 IoT comes to Australia

One of AWS' most highly decorated partners has arrived in Australia, bagging Origin Energy as its foundation client.

C3 was founded in 2009 by technology entrepreneur and former Oracle executive Tom Siebel, who founded CRM pioneer Siebel Systems in 1993 and sold it back to Oracle for US$5.6 billion in 2006.

The company was originally focused on providing software for managing electrical grids, but was rebranded to C3 IoT in 2016 and shifted its core business to providing AI and IoT software for digital transformation, along with data analysis solutions for sensors.

At AWS re:Invent in November last year, C3 IoT announced that it had achieved AWS machine learning competency, making it the only AWS partner to achieve three competencies, along with IoT and big data.

Last month, C3 IoT raised US$100 million, which Siebel said will be used to increase service and distribution capacity globally.

C3 IoT began working with Origin in mid-2016 before establishing its direct Australian presence. The company set up its Asia-Pacific office based in Sydney in January 2017, but exited stealth mode in November.

Since then, C3 IoT's engagement with Origin has expanded, with the energy provider adopting its IoT platform on AWS across its entire business.

Origin's 2000 gas wells are equipped with more than 50 sensors that provide real-time data, and analysing petabytes of data in siloed enterprise systems was proving difficult.

C3 IoT was tasked with developing two AI and machine learning applications to achieve two goals: to predict and optimise the run-life of progressive cavity pumps; and to predict output of individual wells before drilling commences.

The company built a unified cloud-based data image by integrating data from 12 disparate source systems, including hourly and daily sensors measurements, drilling logs and geology estimates. The project was rolled out within 12 weeks.

Origin has since standardised the C3 IoT platform for AI and application development across its business, and plans to use the software platform to build its next 10 applications.

C3 IoT's Australian office currently has five staff, three of which are dedicated to working with Origin. The Australian business is led by country manager Richard Binch, who previously worked at Siebel in the UK until 2007, and was most recently senior vice president at Avanade in Sydney prior to joining C3 IoT 12 months ago.

Binch told CRN the company would look to further expand in Australia and the rest of Asia-Pacific while continuing to work with enterprises for their digital transformation requirements.

"Despite having IoT in the name of the company, we're not limited to opportunities where there is IoT data," Binch said.

"I see that as a key difference when we speak to financial organisations but also in the insurance business and healthcare. We're looking across the board, continuing to hire and grow out the Australia practice, but if we have one priority, it's to ensure Origin is successful as our foundation client in the region."