St. John’s-based CoLab Software has received $5.6 million in funding from two offshore oil projects to help develop its new artificial intelligence and machine learning tool.
The company, whose software supports collaborative 3D design and review, held an event in St. John’s on Wednesday to announce the funding from the Hibernia and Hebron Projects. This cash infusion will fund about 60,000 hours of local software development to expedite the creation of CoLab’s new product – ReviewAI.
ReviewAI uses AI and machine learning to accelerate product development and improve quality. It is already being used by enterprise customers and boasts a strong pipeline of potential customers, said the company.
“This project and the associated funding is an exciting opportunity for CoLab to partner with a forward-looking customer to build capabilities that the industry has never seen before,” said CoLab Co-Founder and CEO Adam Keating in a statement. “In 2025, with support from this project, we will be developing and launching several new capabilities, including a predictive review system that can automatically identify potential design issues. This will not only accelerate design reviews, but also increase their effectiveness by allowing engineers to focus on high impact problems and opportunities.”
CoLab has become a star of Newfoundland’s IT community since Keating co-founded the business with CTO Jeremy Andrews in 2017. It has since announced a US$17 million Series A funding round following its stint in the Y Combinator accelerator in Silicon Valley. In 2024, CoLab closed a US$21 million, or C$28.6 million, Series B funding round led by New York’s Insight Partners. The company said at the time it would use the money for a commercialization push and “big swings” on AI.
The funding from Hibernia and Hebron announced Wednesday is not an equity investment in CoLab. Keating said in an email that part of the funding will be used to accelerate research and development, and the rest is for development of the software.
Last August, CoLab held a Design Engagement Summit to showcase ReviewAI for the first time, and outlined a 24-month development process that targeted a completion of the project by 2026.
The company reached the development agreement with Hebron (an oil production project operated by ExxonMobil Canada Properties) and Hibernia (operated by Hibernia Management and Development Company). Since these parties’ contribution was finalized, CoLab has hired 17 new full-time staff at its headquarters.
Hebron’s engineering service contractor, Aker Solutions, implemented the CoLab solution with 125 users last year and completed over 2,900 design reviews.
“CoLab has improved multi-disciplinary collaboration, visibility and traceability across all our review processes,” said Scott Humber, the Senior Manager for Digitalization with Aker.
“Tighter feedback loops and automated tracking have improved internal review times and cut external reviews from weeks to days—or less—while enhancing visibility and reducing project costs.”
CoLab has since secured another Fortune 50 partnership and said that more than 60 leadership teams from Fortune 1000 companies are evaluating ReviewAI.
CoLab said the funding from Hebron and Hibernia – which includes software subscriptions from the two organizations – has allowed CoLab to accelerate new technology development in four areas:
● Machine learning algorithms. which can automatically identify similar design files;
● Generative AI to surface lessons learned or highlights from past reviews;
● New ways to view, interrogate and analyze 3D engineering data;
● And enterprise security, data protection and compliance controls.
The initial project includes support from Energy Research & Innovation Newfoundland & Labrador.
Nicholas Maccallum, Research & Development Manager with ExxonMobil Canada, said that Hebron and Hibernia “see this project as building foundational capabilities in artificial intelligence and software development in Newfoundland and Labrador. … It is advancing the global reach of a local software company to provide a competitive market solution for collaborative design workflows.”
