Smart buildings startup, PointGrab, has raised a $7 million round of funding from leading lighting firms, including Philips Lighting and Japanese venture capital Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and ABB Technology Ventures.
PointGrab’s most notable product is named CogniPoint, a smart sensor. CogniPoint connects to lightings and thermostats to track occupant activities in a building, in order to saving energy, reducing expenses and improving safety. Founded in 2012, CogniPoint is now installed in numerous sites as part of ongoing projects.
With deep-learning algorithms built-in, the sensor can detect movements and the number of people in the specific location. After gathering the data, the system is able to provide analytics on energy efficiency, space management and operational efficiency. The CogniPoint solution will be available in early 2017.
According to research firm Markets and Markets, smart buildings industry will worth $24.73 billion by 2021, increasing from $5.73billion in 2016. Big corporate players in the industry now include Honeywell, Cisco, Siemens and IBM.
For this investment, Philips Lighting is looking to incorporate CogniPoint’s functionality into their lighting systems, which might help the company enter a larger market and capitalize itself in the IoT field.
“PointGrab has developed truly industry-leading sensor technology. Being a strategic investor gives us a strong competitive edge at a time when our customers are demanding people counting for space optimization,” said Jacques Letzelter, the global segment deader at Philips Lighting, in an official statement.
PointGrab’s headquarter locates in Israel and was founded by Saar Wilf, Haim Perski and Amir Kaplan. Before this funding, the company raised $5 million back in December 2015.
For now, the commercial sector has more popular than smart home sector in the smart building market. As research firm Gartner said, the adoption rate of Internet of Things in the commercial sector will surpass the residential sector through 2016. In 2017, however, smart home technology will see more and more traction from the consumers.