This article was written by Daphne Tomlinson, Independent Senior Research Associate at Memoori. In 2017, funding for startups focused on the commercial and industrial smart buildings market reached its second highest annual level since 2008 as investments amounted to $1.11 billion, according to our recent analysis, updating Memoori’s 2017 Startups Report. Although this is a decrease of 22% from the record $1.42 billion achieved in 2016, the appetite for investing in smart building startups has not diminished significantly. The number of funding rounds, 116 in 2017 was broadly the same as in 2016, indicating that investment values have decreased, rather than the number of companies funded. Investments in IoT platforms, digitization, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data driven software attracted the most interest from venture capital firms and a wide range of industries including building and industrial automation, real estate and facilities management and the IT and telecommunications sectors. For example, AI and data-driven platforms for […]