Twenty-Nine Years Ahead of the Curve and Getting Environmental Compliance Right

On 11 April 1997, I opened Locus Technologies in San Francisco on a premise that felt obvious to me and speculative to almost everyone else: that environmental data was about to become one of the most consequential categories of information a company could possess, and that cloud-native software — built by scientists, not just coding engineers — was the only serious way to manage it. 

Twenty-nine years later, I find that premise more confirmed than I could have reasonably hoped. 

What strikes me most about this anniversary is not how far the company has come, but how clearly the original vision has held. The problems Locus Technologies was built to solve have not diminished. They have grown more complex, more regulated, and more material to business operations worldwide. PFAS contamination, lead pipe replacement mandates, refrigerant phasedowns, CSRD reporting requirements, ESG disclosure obligations, asset retirement — none of these existed in their current form when we opened our doors. All of them are now central to what our clients need from us. 

2025 was the year we sharpened that focus into something bold. After nearly three decades of building, we made a decision that I believe will define the next chapter of this company: we divested our professional services division entirely and became a 100% software company. It was not a small move. It required discipline, conviction, and a clear-eyed view of where our greatest value lies. The result was 40% year-over-year growth in software revenue and a platform that is now unambiguously positioned as the leading pure-play environmental and water compliance software provider in the market. 

Also this year, we launched the Locus Water Suite — a comprehensive cloud platform for drinking water compliance, wastewater management, backflow prevention, industrial pretreatment and lead service line tracking. The new LeadShield app, which helps utilities manage lead pipe inventories and meet EPA reporting mandates, reflects exactly the kind of problem Locus was made for: complex, regulated, high-stakes data that demands accuracy and accountability. We recruited Dr. Laura Underwood, a water sector veteran from Veolia, to lead our utility growth across North America and Europe. The water market is enormous, underserved by purpose-built software, and increasingly under regulatory scrutiny. We intend to lead it. 

We also surpassed 4.2 million PFAS records in the platform, deployed Locus AI for predictive analytics and automated permit compliance monitoring across our platform, achieved both SOC 1 and SOC 2 certifications, and ranked in the top three among more than 200 vendors in a leading independent ESG market analyst report. A flagship global waste and water compliance deployment with Chevron demonstrated what the Locus Platform can do at multinational scale. 

None of this happened by accident. It happened because of a team that has stayed with this company, many of them for a decade or more, and because of clients who have trusted us through every cycle of regulatory change and market disruption. Some of you have been with Locus Technologies since we launched EIM in the late 90s. You have shaped this platform as much as we have. I do not take that lightly. 

Twenty-nine years in technology is long enough to develop a clear view of what lasts and what does not. What lasts is a genuine understanding of the problem you are solving, a platform built on sound technical principles from the beginning, and a team that brings real scientific depth to the work. Locus has all three.  

The software industry is filled with once-prominent companies that did not make it nearly this far as independent innovators. PeopleSoft, Siebel Systems, Sun Microsystems, BEA Systems, and Autonomy were all giants in their time. Each disappeared through acquisition or collapse long before reaching the kind of sustained independence we now mark at Locus. 

Over the past 29 years we have also watched many competitors in the EHS space follow the same pattern: aggressive marketing, rapid private-equity rollups, and eventual consolidation. Many are no longer independent — acquired, merged, or wound down — often leaving customers with migrating platforms, fragmented data, and institutional knowledge that slowly disappears. 

Locus has never been part of that cycle. Remaining founder-owned, financially disciplined, and relentlessly focused on product quality has proven far more durable than growth for its own sake. 

We are now one year from our 30th anniversary. The Locus Platform is stronger than it has ever been; our markets are expanding, and the regulatory tailwinds behind environmental compliance, water quality, and sustainability disclosure are only strengthening. I have more confidence in the direction of this company today than at any previous anniversary. 

The work continues… 

 

Neno Duplan is the founder and CEO of Locus Technologies, which he established on April 11, 1997, in San Francisco, California.