Founded in 2021, Bloomfield-based startup Mach9 Robotics launched a new effort this week to use its integrated hardware and mapping software to provide bridge inspections and assessments in response to the collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge last Friday. The Pittsburgh Bridge Initiative, as the company is calling it, will involve a concerted program to map, monitor and assess the approximately 450 bridges in the Pittsburgh region over the next year.

After meeting at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, Mach9’s three cofounders — Alexander Baikovitz, Haowen Shi and Josh Spisak — joined last spring’s batch of companies in the prestigious accelerator Y Combinator, which helps startups workshop their ideas and provides them with access to early funding. Mach9’s support from Y Combinator, along with its first place win in last year’s CMU McGinnis Venture Competition and investments from Tiger Global Capital Management, Soma Capital and 99Tartans put the nascent company on Technical.ly’s first-ever Pittsburgh RealLIST Startups last month.