The software brain that makes stormwater infrastructure think - sensing water, reading forecasts, and moving it before the storm arrives.
Most stormwater infrastructure is passive. A detention pond, an underground tank, a vault beneath a parking lot - each one sits and waits for rain, then holds what it can and slowly lets the rest go. It has no idea a storm is coming, and no way to prepare. Opti's premise is that this is a software problem as much as a concrete one.
OptiRTC - the company markets itself simply as Opti - builds a cloud platform that turns that static infrastructure into something responsive. It connects sensors and controllable valves to a weather-aware control system, then uses the forecast to act in advance: draining a pond to make room before a downpour, holding water back to protect a stream during peak flow, or releasing slowly to let sediment settle and improve water quality.
The company gave the approach a name the industry didn't previously have: Continuous Monitoring and Adaptive Control, or CMAC. It is the phrase that shows up across Opti's materials, and it captures the difference between reacting to water and anticipating it.
The result, Opti says, is infrastructure that performs like something far larger than it is. In research with North Carolina State University, adaptive control cut wet-weather runoff and peak flows by more than 90% - without pouring a single new foundation. That is the pitch in one line: get more out of the assets already in the ground.
It is a deeply unglamorous corner of the built environment. It is also exactly where climate change tends to arrive first - in the basement, the culvert, and the overflowing sewer during a storm that used to be rare.
Sensors track water levels, flow, and quality across the site in real time.
The platform ingests weather forecasts to anticipate incoming storms.
Predictive control weighs 90+ settings for flood, quality, and reuse goals.
Automated valves release or hold water - coordinated across the watershed.
The problems it solves
Cities and utilities face a stack of overlapping pressures: flash flooding, combined sewer overflows that dump untreated water into rivers during storms, erosion, and strict regulatory limits on what leaves a site. The traditional fix is grey infrastructure - bigger pipes, bigger basins, more concrete - which is expensive, slow to permit, and disruptive to build.
Opti offers a different lever. By actively managing the storage that already exists, it helps operators hit water-quality and flood-control targets without new construction, and produces the performance data needed to satisfy regulators.
Who its customers are
Opti's users sit across the stormwater value chain: municipal water and public-works departments, water utilities, and MS4 operators responsible for storm-sewer compliance; real-estate and infrastructure developers who need to meet permit conditions; and the engineering consultants who design and run these systems on their clients' behalf.
The company reports 170+ deployments in communities across more than 20 states - from municipal projects like the City of Albany's underground smart water systems to private development sites earning stormwater and sustainability credits.
Cloud-native software for Continuous Monitoring and Adaptive Control - integrating sensors, forecasts, and field controls to automatically move and treat water.
Forecast-based automation with 90+ adjustable settings that drains or holds water ahead of storms for flood control, water quality, and reuse.
Enhanced real-time monitoring, dashboards, and event-separated data for reporting and compliance.
Scalable multi-site management that coordinates and optimizes many stormwater assets across an entire watershed.
Manages upstream and downstream conditions so multiple sites release water in concert rather than in isolation.
Program and watershed planning, design and analysis, implementation, compliance reporting, and operations & maintenance managed services.
Opti's core argument is one of efficiency: active control can deliver the performance of a much larger passive system, at a fraction of the cost. The figures below are the company's own claims for its adaptive approach.
What sets Opti apart from both traditional grey infrastructure and rival smart-water tools is the combination of three things: a forecast-driven control loop rather than simple threshold alarms, an open approach that integrates third-party sensors instead of locking customers into proprietary hardware, and the ability to coordinate many sites as a single watershed. Competitors in the broader smart-water space include Xylem/EmNet, 2NDNATURE, Innovyze, and StormSensor - but the most common alternative Opti actually displaces is the oldest one: build it bigger.
The business model
Opti sells software subscriptions - a base platform plus optional add-on modules - alongside professional and managed services. Its buyers are municipalities, utilities, developers, and the engineering firms that specify and operate stormwater systems. It is a B2B model where a recurring software fee rides on top of long-lived physical assets.
Since Aliaxis, a global fluid-management and infrastructure manufacturer, acquired Opti in November 2022, that software now pairs with physical products and a worldwide distribution channel - a classic hardware-meets-software combination.
Where it fits in the market
Opti sits at the intersection of climate adaptation, water utilities, and enterprise SaaS - a niche often called "smart water" or "digital water." It is small by revenue (third-party estimates put it in the single-digit millions) and headcount (roughly two dozen employees), but it helped define a category and carries multiple U.S. patents.
As storms grow heavier and static drainage falls behind, the market thesis is straightforward: the cheapest new capacity is the intelligence added to infrastructure that already exists.
Engineering consultancy Geosyntec acquires Rainwater Recovery, combining stormwater research with emerging IoT and cloud technology.
Collaboration with NC State University demonstrates 90%+ reductions in wet-weather runoff using adaptive control.
The technology spins out as OptiRTC, Inc., introduces the CMAC concept, and begins earning regulatory approvals.
Opti closes a $5.5M equity round led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund to scale nationally, past 130 deployments.
Global infrastructure company Aliaxis acquires Opti to bring intelligent stormwater technology to more cities.
Opti reports 170+ deployments and tens of thousands of storms managed across the United States.
Opti was founded by Marcus Quigley, a co-inventor of its adaptive-control patents. Today the company is led by CEO David Rubinstein, with a leadership bench that blends civil and environmental engineering with cloud software.
The technology grew out of an engineering firm's acquisition of a company literally named Rainwater Recovery.
The platform bets on the forecast - it drains a pond before the rain so there's room to catch the storm.
It's a rare software company whose "users" are as much ponds, tanks, and valves as people.
Opti introduced the acronym CMAC to an industry that had no name for real-time stormwater control.
It was recognized at the first Smart City Expo World Congress via NYC's Economic Development Corporation.
It provides cloud-based software that actively controls stormwater infrastructure - using sensors, valves, and weather forecasts to move and treat water for flood control, water quality, and reuse.
Continuous Monitoring and Adaptive Control - Opti's term for real-time, forecast-driven control of stormwater assets, as opposed to passive systems that simply hold and slowly release water.
Municipalities, water utilities, MS4 operators, real-estate developers, and the engineering consultants who design and manage stormwater systems - across 170+ deployments in the U.S.
Opti was acquired by Aliaxis, a global infrastructure and fluid-management company, in November 2022, and operates as part of that group.
In the Boston, Massachusetts area, where it was founded in 2014 as a spin-out from engineering consultancy Geosyntec Consultants.
Explore Opti's product demos, customer stories, and platform walkthroughs on its official channels.
Profile compiled from public sources including optirtc.com, Aliaxis, Wikipedia, PRNewswire, FinSMEs, CB Insights, and PitchBook. Figures such as deployments, storms managed, and cost savings are company-reported and approximate. Revenue and headcount are third-party estimates and may vary.