EQUA AI Wins Pitch Pulse 2026 AI & Predictive Systems Session

Milestone: 5 June 2026

On 5 June 2026, Srikant Naidu presented EQUA AIMMS at Pitch Pulse 2026 Session 02, AI & Predictive Systems: From Data to Decisions, held online.

EQUA AI was selected as one of the session’s two winning startups, alongside Parakeet Risk, and now advances to the Pitch Pulse in-person Grand Finale. Across the 2026 programme, Pitch Pulse selected 40 finalists from more than 300 applications and lists EQUA as one of two Artificial Intelligence session winners.

We pitched a problem that happens after equipment fails

When critical equipment fails, finding the fault is only part of the job. The team still has to bring together the alarm and operating evidence, find the right manual and repair history, decide what to inspect next, verify the exact part, confirm physical inventory, contact suppliers, compare quotes, route approvals, keep the maintenance record current, verify closeout, and preserve what happened for the next fault.

Those steps cross people, systems, and authority boundaries. They are digital work, but they are often coordinated manually while the asset waits.

AIMMS is built to carry that work from fault to fix. It assembles permitted evidence with its source and age attached, supports the team’s understanding of the fault, guides the next step, makes blockers visible, and moves permitted work around parts, suppliers, approvals, records, and closeout under customer-defined roles and approval rules. Qualified people still make the physical, safety, and return-to-service decisions.

FIG. 1

From fault to fix

Figure 1. From fault to fix. Six stages run from left to right. Fault begins with the alarm, photo, voice note, or inspection. Understand brings together evidence, history, likely cause, and what to check next. Prepare covers safety, the correct part, physical inventory, suppliers, and approvals. Repair is the physical work performed by the technician while AIMMS keeps permitted digital work moving. Return verifies the work, closes it, and updates approved records. Learn preserves what happened for the next fault.

The technician repairs the asset. AIMMS handles the digital work around it.

Why the recognition matters to us

No EQUA-specific judging rationale is public, so we will not assign one to the judges.

What we chose to put in front of them was a concrete operating question: when critical equipment is down, what has to happen to get it safely back into service? AIMMS follows that question beyond detection or diagnosis and into the work required to prepare, repair, return, and learn.

A session about turning data into decisions was a fitting place to present a fault-to-fix product. The value of operating data is not that it exists. It is that the right evidence can support the next responsible action without crossing the customer’s control, safety, or approval boundaries.

“We built AIMMS around a very practical question: when critical equipment fails, what is keeping the repair from moving? Winning the AI and Predictive Systems session is meaningful because it recognizes the problem we are focused on solving, turning operational data into the actions that help get equipment back online.”

Srikant Naidu, Founder, EQUA AI

Thank you to the people behind the session

Thank you to the Session 02 judges, Sam Bigdeli, Mostafa Afkhamizadeh, and Mehrzad Sajjadi, for the time and attention they gave the companies presenting.

We also thank JANUS Innovation Hub and the Pitch Pulse team, together with UC San Diego Office of Innovation and Commercialization, Startup Science, Startup San Diego, Startup Grind, and Connect for building the programme and the community around it.

Congratulations to Parakeet Risk, our fellow Session 02 winner, and to everyone who presented.

What comes next

The Pitch Pulse Grand Finale & Showcase takes place on 4 November 2026 in San Diego, where the programme’s session winners will present in person.

JANUS has said the Grand Finale is its regional qualifier for the Startup World Cup pathway, where a $1 million investment prize is eventually at stake. EQUA has not won that stage or qualified for the global final.

Recognition gives the work another place to be tested, but the mission does not change. EQUA is building AIMMS to help the people responsible for critical equipment bring the right evidence together, clear the work that keeps repairs waiting, and return assets to service with a verified record of what happened.

Sources

• Pitch Pulse, 2026 Finalists and Winners, accessed 13 August 2026.
• Pitch Pulse California, Session 02: AI & Predictive Systems announcement, 5 June 2026 event details and ecosystem partners.
• Pitch Pulse California, Session 02 results, EQUA AI and Parakeet Risk advancement, judges, and ecosystem partners.
• JANUS SIGNAL, June 2026 programme update, Session 02 winners and Startup World Cup pathway.
• Eventship, Pitch Pulse Grand Finale & Showcase, 4 November 2026 event listing.