Cumulus Digital Systems

About Cumulus Digital Systems

Cumulus Digital Systems provides a Quality Execution System (QES) designed to digitize and verify mission-critical manual work in industrial settings. Founded in 2018 by Matthew Kleiman, Meghan Devine Golden, Chizuruoke Chikwendu, and Mark Litke, the company emerged from Shell's innovation center, Shell TechWorks. The founding team's background in sectors like aerospace, defense, biomedical systems, and energy instilled a deep understanding of the consequences of poor work quality and inefficient paper-based systems. CEO Matthew Kleiman previously co-founded and served as Head of Programs at Shell TechWorks, bringing experience from the biomedical and aerospace industries. The initial prototype for the company's first product was developed within Shell, and after successful large-scale deployments, the team spun out to form Cumulus. The company's creation was partly influenced by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon incident, which highlighted the need for improved safety and environmental standards in large industrial facilities.

The firm's core offering is a cloud-hosted software platform, termed the "Internet of Tools," which connects with IoT devices and digitally-enabled tools in the field. This system allows for real-time quality assurance, progress tracking, and the automatic generation of digital records for tasks like bolt tightening, welding, and pressure testing. Its flagship product, the Smart Torque System (STS), provides visibility into industrial bolting activities, a common source of leaks in refineries and chemical plants. The platform includes a cloud-based control center dashboard, a mobile application to guide workers, and connectivity with smart tools. By digitizing these workflows, Cumulus aims to eliminate rework, which can represent a significant portion of project costs, and reduce the need for time-consuming manual inspections. The business model appears to be subscription-based, with monthly payments dependent on the number of users.

Cumulus serves a global client base across diverse sectors, including energy, construction, manufacturing, semiconductors, data centers, transportation, and renewables. The company reports that its technology can decrease costs for quality control and data review by over 60%. To date, Cumulus has secured $15 million in funding over two rounds. The initial seed round in December 2018 raised $4.5 million, led by Brick & Mortar Ventures, and a Series A round in January 2021 brought in an additional $8 million, led by GEC. Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, the company maintains additional offices in Houston, Texas, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to support its international operations.