Halifax’s KorrAI, which uses artificial intelligence to help assess satellite images of infrastructure and mining sites, has launched a new, free software platform for assessing ground movement in population centres, which can indicate risks like flooding and infrastructure damage.

Dubbed the Open Ground Motion Service — “open” in the context of software meaning freely accessible — the platform targets entities like insurance companies, real estate investors and governments. It will launch initially with support for nine Canadian cities, and KorrAI is asking for user feedback about what locations the company should add support for next, as well as what additional features it should incorporate.

The OGMS, for short, will complement KorrAI’s main product, a platform that consolidates satellite image data and aerial earth observation data to analyze the underlying geology of a given landscape, with applications in mining, infrastructure monitoring, insurance and environmental research.

“We believe there is huge value still to be delivered by better understanding how the ground is moving,” says KorrAI on its website. “The mechanisms of what makes the ground move are known, but we have been lacking the monitoring and predictive tools for keeping our communities and infrastructure safe from harm. 

“With OGMS, we’ve made freely available our basic offering to demonstrate the potential of our technology and to uncover use cases.”

Founded in 2021 by CEO Rahul Anand, who previously launched and subsequently sold a vehicle marketplace startup in India, KorrAI is one of the very few Atlantic Canadian companies to have completed Silicon Valley’s prestigious Y Combinator startup accelerator. It joined in February of 2022, receiving a US$500,000 investment as part of the program.

The company has also worked with Indigenous communities in the Canadian North to help them assess the mineral deposits on their lands and plot ways to develop and ship ore in a sustainable fashion.

And in November of last year, Anand and his team closed a $1.6 million pre-seed funding round from Y Combinator, Hong Kong-based ParticleX, Sustainable Development Technology Canada and others, in addition to $600,000 of non-dilutive funding from groups including the Canadian Space Agency, SDTC and NRC-IRAP.