Platforms

PassiveLogic has secured $34 million in Series B funding from investors Addition and Keyframe, the company said in a release.

The firm noted that these investors are joined by commercial real estate strategics, including RET Ventures, Brookfield Growth, and Era Ventures from the U.S., and Europe’s largest proptech VC firm, A/O PropTech.

“Buildings are the world’s most complex systems, a problem that increases as buildings become ‘smart.’ We’ve built a platform that tames increasing complexity and addresses the growing technology needs of the built environment,” said PassiveLogic CEO Troy Harvey. “At PassiveLogic, our core focus is to redefine how people participate in the design, build, operation, and maintenance of complex systems.”

PassiveLogic was founded in 2016, and the company has developed a product ecosystem that it describes as enabling autonomous systems “from development to deployment”. PassiveLogic’s software environment, Autonomy Studio, allows users to build models by drawing, according to the company. The software then generates a physics-based digital twin, in a new description language called Quantum. These applications deploy within PassiveLogic’s control hardware, the Hive, a scalable automation platform, the company said.

“PassiveLogic’s platform has unique capabilities to generate a digital twin of a building and utilize new autonomous technologies, machine learning and easily configurable software to help streamline the implementation and management of building controls systems,” said Todd Arfman of Addition. “We’re thrilled to double down and continue our investment in PassiveLogic to modernize today’s building infrastructure and connectivity.”

The company highlighted that Quantum provides virtual analogs to real-world objects, powered by the company’s physics-based artificial intelligence technology. This enables real-world objects to understand their behavior and interactions and learn in place while operating in real time. PassiveLogic’s autonomous suite is built around their Hive controller, enabling connectivity to building systems. Hive controllers work together within a building to provide an edge platform for sensors, equipment, and IoT, allowing whole-building control without requiring cloud connectivity. In recent pilot projects, PassiveLogic’s approach demonstrated 30% energy savings and 90% labor savings in programming, installation, and commissioning compared to conventional solutions.

PassiveLogic’s product suite understands how a building’s equipment and systems interact, allowing processing times to be slashed from many days to a few minutes. This functionality allows local in-building AI to make real-time control and management decisions that co-optimize comfort, maintenance, efficiency and operational costs.

“The version of ‘machine learning’ in today’s building automation applications lack effective data controls. With PassiveLogic’s solution, we finally have the opportunity to leverage more powerful technology to make an impact in the building market, which accounts for 39 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions,” said Benjamin Birnbaum, partner at Keyframe. “We are excited to be a part of this funding round to bring a first of its kind solution to the building sector ? one that has been starved of innovation far too long.”

U.S. glass-manufacturing company View recently announced it has entered into a strategic agreement with RXR Realty to combine RXR?s WorxWell data analytics platform into its broader technology stack.

Formerly known as RxWell, WorxWell?s data analytics platform aggregates all building data including occupancy, space usage, digital collaboration and work patterns, access control, air quality, temperature, and environmental factors into a consolidated dashboard to optimize every aspect of building operations and workplace experience for both building owners and occupiers. It also offers tools and mobile apps that put employee health and safety, security, space utilization, hybrid work analyses, employee experience and engagement, ESG optimization and compliance, operational information, and more in the hands of building managers and tenants, according to the company. WorxWell is currently deployed in 25 million square feet of office buildings.

The acquisition of WorxWell enables View to provide an integrated, end-to-end technology and product stack that seamlessly brings together software, sensors, and data from View and third parties, into a unified platform, so real estate owners and enterprise customers can use data to effectively respond to changing trends in real estate, such as hybrid work, health and wellness, and sustainability.

?Real estate owners and tenants are embracing technology to deliver better occupant experiences, improved health, lower carbon emissions, and superior business outcomes,? said Rao Mulpuri, CEO of View. ?We are excited to partner with RXR to bring together the best of both companies ? RXR?s real estate expertise and tenant insights and View?s deep technology and product development expertise ? to make buildings healthier, more energy efficient, more adaptable to user needs, and lower cost to operate.?

?View has built the industry?s most comprehensive technology stack to drive the digital transformation of real estate. We created WorxWell to re-invent the office experience and we see this partnership with View as the fastest way to take the product to the next level and ensure that our buildings and customers will always have the latest and greatest technological advances,? said Scott Rechler, Chairman and CEO of RXR Realty. ?Working together with View, we will combine our in-depth knowledge of the space with real-time tenant feedback to keep WorxWell on the vanguard of creating transformational experiences for our customers and driving the digitization of real estate.?

The RXR platform manages 73 commercial real estate properties and investments with an aggregate gross asset value of $21.0 billion, comprising approximately 26.8 million square feet of commercial properties, a multi-family residential portfolio of approximately 4,200 units under operation or development, and control of development rights for an additional approximately 2,900 multi-family and for sale units as of June 30, 2021.

This transaction follows View?s acquisition earlier this year of IoTium, a provider of secure, cloud-managed, software-defined IoT networks.

View is installed and designed into 90 million square feet of buildings including offices, hospitals, airports, educational facilities, hotels and multi-family residences.

U.S. firm Xicato, which provides Bluetooth smart building wireless controls, and U.K. company amBX, a developer of lighting controls software, announced a strategic partnership to integrate Xicato?s smart wireless controls with amBX SmartCore lighting control software.

The strategic partnership will create a complete intelligent and wireless solution that includes lighting, sensor and data management within one unified platform, eliminating the need for separate control systems by functionality, the two partners said.

?The integration of the amBX SmartCore lighting control software with the Xicato Intelligent Gateway provides new opportunities for specifiers, designers and installers of smart lighting systems, uniting two highly innovative solutions into one single platform,? said Andre Jutel, business development manager at amBX. ?The promise of intelligent, fully integrated hardware and smart control offers unique interoperability with other systems such as building management solutions, security and access control,? the executive added.

?Wireless connected Xicato devices can now be used with the amBX SmartCore lighting software system delivering reporting and visually representative operational data in real-time,? said April Mitchell, VP of channel marketing. ?Additionally, amBX?s recent addition of smart emergency lighting control to their product suite is a further benefit as this functionality is a highly popular request from Xicato?s worldwide customers.?

The firms noted that the integrated offering will enable detailed lighting control by room, floor, building, and campus.

amBX?s smart lighting and building control software, SmartCore, is an open, interoperable platform that unifies control, connectivity and real-time data insight.

The firm?s software is installed in millions of square feet of buildings and in over 200 projects in 16 countries.

Xicato?s portfolio includes linear light sources, LED drivers; as well as other wirelessly connected intelligent devices including sensors, switches, gateways, controls electronics, and software.

Canadian firm mCloud Technologies has added grid-adaptive demand management to its AssetCare for Buildings solution.

The new offering uses AI in the cloud to manage the electric demand of a building in direct response to signals from local utility operators, the company said.

mCloud said it is onboarding its first 20 new AssetCare customer buildings to benefit from this capability in partnership with local utilities in British Columbia, California, and New York.

Through AssetCare, mCloud offers a subscription-based solution enabling customers to automatically respond to utility requests to reduce energy consumption at peak times, an energy savings tactic called “peak demand reduction,” aimed at reducing concurrent load on a local utility grid when demand for electricity and the cost of energy are at their highest. Any utility supporting the industry-standard OpenADR protocol for grid interactivity is directly supported by AssetCare. The U.S. Department of Energy recently released a national roadmap to have every commercial building in the United States become grid-interactive through standards including OpenADR with the intent of tripling building energy efficiency using demand reduction by 2030.

AssetCare’s visual analytics capabilities add an enterprise layer enabling utility partners to continuously track peak demand reductions at the sub-asset level. Likewise, AssetCare customers can track their energy savings and reductions in their carbon footprint, the firm said.

“The vision of making every commercial building grid-interactive is now a reality with AssetCare,” said Patrick O’Neill, mCloud’s president for connected buildings. “Buildings that interact and cooperate with the grid are the future of smart, efficient buildings and mCloud offers the simplest pathway to get there.”

“When combined with our fully automated indoor air quality optimization capabilities, mCloud offers customers a unique, single solution that simultaneously makes indoor environments safe, sustainable, and remarkably energy efficient,” O’Neill added.

mCloud has recently partnered with three utilities in the United States and Canada and is actively working with them to drive adoption of AssetCare through utility-sponsored incentives. BC Hydro, the provincial utility in British Columbia, ?partnered with mCloud to offer certain commercial customers a direct incentive to make their buildings grid-responsive. The Bay Area Regional Energy Network (BayREN) in the state of California and Con Edison in New York State, two of the highest peak demand regions of the United States, are similarly partnered with mCloud to deliver energy savings.

Through mCloud’s AI-powered AssetCare platform, mCloud offers complete asset management solutions for commercial buildings, renewable energy, healthcare, heavy industry, and connected workers.

JLL, a professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management, announced the release of JLL Azara, which is a corporate real estate data and insights platform.

The new platform was developed by JLL Technologies (JLLT), a business division of JLL that is dedicated to commercial real estate (CRE) technology.

“Capturing and leveraging data has so much untapped potential in the CRE technology space, with benefits that can extend across entire organizations, impacting not only business decisions but overall employee experience and sustainability practices as well,” said Sharad Rastogi, president of revenue at JLL Technologies. “JLL Azara is an expansion of JLL Technologies’ work to empower leaders through more dynamic, data-driven decision-making and accelerate business impact from months to days (?) Imagine a world where data from building sensors could detect patterns across offices, such as building management activity and workplace behavior, that can be tracked over time to allow for advanced planning and decision-making. This is the power of JLL Azara.”

“Although most organizations now possess a wealth of data, the hurdle is using it to drive positive outcomes,” said Mark Schmitz, EVP and COO of Citrix. “As a JLL client, having access to a solution that derives insights and recommendations from data to guide our real estate decisions is an invaluable resource.”

JLL Azara supports the “complete real estate lifecycle” across three categories: Portfolio optimization, facilities and operations, and space and workplace management. In the future, JLL Azara will expand to cover additional categories such as energy measurement and management.

The company also noted that all relevant real estate systems, including ERP, IWMS, IoT and CRE applications, can integrate into the new platform.

JLL also said that the new offering will enable executives to view real-time internal and external data organized across 30-plus pre-built dashboards, which will help to optimize real estate portfolios, improve space utilization, enhance employee workplace experiences and drive facilities management efficiency.

Corporate real estate leaders are able to find potential savings opportunities by analyzing comparable lease properties in the market and identifying higher than ordinary facilities costs.

Meanwhile, facilities managers can be alerted to immediate needs that impact employee workplace experiences, in addition to important compliance situations such as signage and space density issues, JLL said.

Siemens Smart Infrastructure has updated its Desigo CC smart building management platform to version V5.0, which will allow the software to be open for more systems and devices, the firm said in a release.

The platform now offers improved connectivity and support for more integrations, such as EV charging stations, the company said. Siemens noted that the new Desigo CC V5.0 further strengthens the level of cybersecurity protection and enables a wide variety of buildings to become future-proof.

For the first time, the smart building platform offers the ability to monitor the energy consumption of electric vehicles, thanks to EV charging station integration via the OCPP protocol. Additionally, Desigo CC extends its cloud connectivity with direct access from the Siemens cloud application Building Operator through a secure internet tunnel to start the local Desigo CC Flex Client for advanced operation. ?With this easy cloud connection, operators can access their Desigo CC without the need for a VPN connection, anytime and from anywhere, allowing them to reduce their on-site presence,? Siemens Smart Infrastructure said.

The company also said that Flex Client is the new HTML5 front-end of Desigo CC that can run on any operating system and web browser supporting HTML5 technology, and also mobile devices such as tablets. ?Flex Client has been designed to improve the user experience and to make the monitoring of any building an easy process. With V5.0, Flex Client has been improved and now provides easier event handling, a sophisticated trending application and easy access to building schedules,” said Siemens Smart Infrastructure.

To protect vulnerable building data even better, Desigo CC V5.0 is now IEC62443-3-3 SL2 compliant. Extensions and subsystem integrations have been extensively evaluated and tested to be listed as SL2 compliant, allowing Desigo CC to be used in deployments with higher security demands, the company said.

The new version of the smart building platform also allows the integration of additional KNX devices such as Tunable White DALI gateways.

With these new functionalities and enhancements, Siemens Smart Infrastructure said that Desigo CC V5.0 is “taking the next step to boost the digitalization of buildings and to contribute to making infrastructure smarter. It helps make buildings such as hospitals, commercial buildings, data centers, offices, hotels or airports future-proof and easy to manage.?

Schneider Electric upped investment in smart building startup

Clockworks Analytics announced that it has raised an $8-million funding round, bringing the company?s total funding to date to approximately $13 million, the company said in a release.

The firm said that the capital round was led by Carom Growth Partners and Evans Capital Management, with participation of existing investor Schneider Electric.

Founded as KGS Buildings in 2008 within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?s Building Technology Department, Clockworks Analytics is a software platform that helps facility professionals and their service providers gain visibility into the biggest issues affecting building energy consumption, indoor air quality and equipment health.

With its technology deployed in 420 million square feet of property across every building type on four continents, Clockworks Analytics said that its Fault Detection and Diagnostics system has helped facilities teams reduce energy use, improve air quality and enhance the reliability of building equipment.

In detecting issues and diagnosing their root causes, the technology helps building teams work in a more predictive manner: prioritizing the most pressing issues and performing maintenance activities that avoid equipment degradation and failure, thereby reducing associated costs.

The issues flagged by Clockworks include those relating to indoor air quality. With its dynamic monitoring of building systems, the software identifies equipment degradation that impacts humidity or ventilation.

?Clockworks Analytics brings data to life, prioritizing the top issues affecting energy performance and indoor air quality across thousands of facilities every day,? said Clockworks Analytics CEO Nicholas Gayeski. ?By transforming the building industry with real business intelligence, Clockworks arms facilities teams and service providers with the tools and insights for next-generation facilities management. We?re excited to partner with investors like Carom and Evans ? partners who believe in the massive potential of the smart buildings industry and our competitive edge in enabling a new vision of analytics-driven services. This capital raise will allow us to further invest in our core product and scale our ability to serve more and more facilities professionals around the world.?

Clockworks has achieved significant market penetration in the educational, medical and corporate real estate sectors, with clients including MIT, Harvard Business School, Amgen, Kaiser Permanente, HPE and Ericsson.

With this funding round complete, Clockworks Analytics aims to accelerate its product roadmap. The firm said that it will be incorporating machine learning into the onboarding process to connect buildings to the Clockworks platform.

Evan Kornack of Carom Growth Partners, said: ?By taking existing fault detection technologies to the next level, Clockworks is truly reshaping how buildings are monitored and maintained ? not on a small level, but within thousands of buildings in 30 countries. With a cloud-based system that enables the team to be nimble in deploying the platform and upgrading protocols, Clockworks Analytics represents the rare scalable business model that can already boast significant market penetration.?

Planon and MazeMap are partnering to integrate Planon?s software for real estate, space, and asset management and MazeMap?s digital wayfinding solutions.

The two companies said that this partnership will enable organizations to offer an improved real-time user experience to building occupants and visitors.

MazeMap specializes in digital indoor and outdoor wayfinding for large campuses such as universities, hospitals, offices, and conference venues. By connecting MazeMap?s technology with Planon?s Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS), building occupants will benefit from enhanced navigation tools, the partners said.

?We are delighted to partner with Planon and to bring our digital wayfinding solution to the platform. The joint solution enables building occupants to get real-time directions from A to B,? said Thomas Jelle, CEO of MazeMap.

?Combining MazeMap?s expertise with Planon?s market leading IWMS allows us to meet the growing demand for an embedded wayfinding solution,? said Pierre Guelen, CEO of Planon. Iwan van Eldijk, VP of partnering and alliances at Planon, added, ?Organizations will benefit from the user-friendly integration of MazeMap?s wayfinding solution with their Planon software solutions and will be able to offer a more hospitable experience to building users.?

Planon?s Integrated Workplace Management Solution (IWMS) includes: real estate management, space & workplace management, asset & maintenance management, integrated services management and sustainability management.

Planon is a global software provider that helps organizations to streamline business processes for buildings, people and workplaces. Planon has over 2,500 customers in 40 countries. The firm has offices in the United Kingdom, Singapore, the Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, India, Austria, Hong Kong and the United States.

Aquicore, which offers a platform for digitizing real estate operations and optimizing buildings, announced it has secured $14 million in new funding.

In a release, the firm said that the round of funding was led by Keyframe Capital Partners with additional participation by A/O Proptech and The Westly Group. This new round of funding adds to previous investments from Navitas Capital and FifthWall and brings Aquicore?s total capital raised to $33 million.

 ?Aquicore is well on its way to becoming the de facto end-to-end solution for building performance analytics,? said Benjamin Birnbaum, partner at Keyframe Capital who has joined the Aquicore Board of Directors. ?We?re excited to join a great investor group to get behind the team that is unlocking the far-reaching benefits of organized and expansive data for building systems.?

?The world can?t access the economic or energy related opportunities of efficient buildings without broad proliferation of performance analytics,? said Birnbaum. ?While systems and energy efficiency related NOI opportunities have been apparent for decades to real estate owners and developers, without the data to baseline performance, substantiate capital allocation, and drive change to operating behaviors, progress on optimization has consistently failed to live up expectations. Aquicore is leading the market in changing that. We look forward to what this investment will mean for Aquicore?s ability to accelerate the ways that it creates value for its customers.?

Aquicore said it will use its newest funding round to continue advancing its cloud-based platform and expand into the European market.

 ?With a low barrier to adoption in terms of cost, diversity of analytics features and workflow orchestration, Aquicore has already established itself as a leader in the U.S. and we look forward to accompanying them as they expand to the European market,? said Gregory Dewerpe, founder and managing partner at A/O Proptech. ?The timing couldn?t be better. With new regulatory initiatives coming into force soon in Europe to reduce carbon emissions, such as RE2020 climate and energy package, Aquicore is a perfect partner platform.”

Headquartered in Washington DC, Aquicore is a smart building platform that enables commercial real estate portfolio and property teams to remotely monitor their energy and facilities. The Aquicore platform is currently deployed with commercial real estate companies at more than 1,000 commercial buildings nationwide, optimizing more than 275 million square feet of real estate. 

Xfinity Communities, a unit of Comcast, and?Kass Management Services, a Chicago-based rental and commercial property and condominium association management company, announced the launch of the commercial deployment of the Xfinity Communities? Smart Communities platform at two Kass-operated, multifamily rental properties in Chicago

Through the partnership, 50 units were outfitted with smart devices, including smart thermostats and smart lighting, which renters can control via the Xfinity Communities app when they?re at home or away.

Combined with Xfinity Internet?service, the devices create a technology platform that over time, property managers can expand with additional smart features, such as security cameras and smart locks, Xfinity said.

?Creating smart communities by integrating smart home technology into our properties makes life easier and more convenient for residents and may even help them have more control over their utility usage,? said Mark Durakovic, principal, Kass Management Services Inc. ?In a competitive rental market like Chicago?s, smart features help to differentiate properties, add value and attract residents.?

Property managers can control the entire platform via Xfinity Communities? Smart Communities Portal, which gives them the ability to manage automation technology in their properties? administrative and public areas.

The system can help reduce energy use by controlling temperatures in vacant units and common areas. In addition, when a unit is rented, property managers can prep it and turn over control of the smart devices to the new tenant via the portal, the company said.

?We?re excited to partner with Kass to launch Smart Communities in the Chicago market,? said Chris Smith, Comcast?s regional vice president of Marketing and Sales. ?Home automation is a burgeoning market, and we?re thrilled to bring it to Chicago area apartment dwellers. Tenants are going to appreciate the control they have over their units, and property managers are going to appreciate the convenience and control this technology will give them over their properties.?

Founded in 1985, Kass Management Services Inc. has been providing residential rental, condominium and commercial management services. Today, the company manages more than 10,000 units and more than 450 properties in the Chicago area.