Surge

About the offering

Surge Networks (surgenetworks.ai) is an early-stage Physical AI data infrastructure company founded in 2024 and incorporated in Wilmington, DE. The company installs small sensor systems — using LiDAR (3D spatial mapping), radar, and environmental sensors — on existing urban infrastructure such as light poles and rooftops to capture real-time, anonymized data on traffic flow, pedestrian movement, and environmental conditions. Critically, the platform does not use cameras and captures no images, faces, or identifiable information, a design principle the company calls 'Anonymous by Physics.' The collected data is structured and sold on a recurring basis to multiple customer types including cities and municipal agencies, AI and autonomous systems companies, logistics operators, real estate firms, and insurance providers. The business model is compared to cell tower infrastructure: one physical node is deployed once, and multiple customers pay recurring fees to access the data it generates, creating a multi-tenant, recurring-revenue asset. Each node costs approximately $70,000 to deploy, with an estimated $250K–$1M in annual revenue per location (per third-party data valuation firm Gulp Data, Q4 2025; not guaranteed) and a projected sub-5-month payback period with operating costs below 10% of revenue. The company currently has a live deployment in New Orleans with 50+ active locations. It is targeting 70 locations across 4 cities in 2026 and has secured a national pipeline of 3,000+ locations through strategic partnerships. Partnerships and integrations include Cron AI (3D perception), Blue-Band (edge AI), True North (digital twins), Gulp Data (data commercialization), and NVIDIA (Surge is an NVIDIA Inception Program member). The company deploys through partnerships with infrastructure operators who already control poles, conduit, and right-of-way, reducing permitting friction and deployment costs. Surge is structured as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), legally obligating it to consider community impact alongside financial returns. The current raise is conducted via a SAFE (SAFER instrument), under which 4.735% of company revenue is distributed pro rata to investors, with a target return of 2.5x for early investors converting to 2x thereafter, and equity conversion upon a major liquidity event. The founding team includes CEO Miguel Jaramillo (20+ years in municipal and mobility infrastructure, previously at Integrated Roadways), CFO Brandon Richman (20+ years in infrastructure finance, previously at Black & Veatch and Diode Ventures), and Executive Chair John Cowan (co-founder of 6fusion and EDJX, pioneer in distributed edge computing). The company won the ICW 2026 Championship Audience Vote at the Kingscrowd Global Investing Conference in April 2026 and holds a 4.8/5.0 rating. As of the time of this summary, the Wefunder campaign has raised $580,005 from 143+ investors, surpassing its initial goal. Notable investors include Next Wave Partners and several individual angels.

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