Enlighted Inc., a provider of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for commercial buildings, announced the company secured $25 million in Series D funding to accelerate its IoT app development and expand international distribution to France, Germany and the U.K.
Along with the expansion investment from the company’s current investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, RockPort Capital Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Enlighted’s round included a new investor to the company, Tao Capital Partners. Tao is a representative in “positive impact” investing in technology, alternative energy and transportation, health care, education, sustainable food and agriculture, consumer, and real estate businesses, including Tesla, Uber and SpaceX.
“With this war-chest of funding—including new active investor Tao Capital Partners—Enlighted is poised to grow exponentially and accelerate the adoption of decision-making data solutions for intelligent real estate,” says Enlighted CEO Joe Costello. “Our emphasis on engineering IoT apps means we can provide our customers more ways to make the data our advanced sensors are collecting actionable, further improving efficiencies of buildings for the enterprise.”
“We have huge interest in and optimism about Enlighted’s IoT applications,” says Nick Pritzker, a managing director of Tao Capital Partners. “The company is collecting never-before-available data on the energy, life and activity in buildings, and we see massive potential as the company expands sales and delivery in the U.S. and globally. We are proud to add Enlighted to our portfolio.”
Enlighted also announced a new partnership with Square 1 Bank, a division of Pacific Western Bank, to provide Enlighted with $20 million in additional liquidity to help finance its accelerated growth plans.
Enlighted’s advanced IoT system is installed in more than 100 million square feet nationwide in Fortune 500 companies, including Google, AT&T and HP. The system uses advanced digital sensors and analytics, with vertical market penetration established in communications, banking, health care, and next-generation service providers.
The company’s first-to-market apps—Space, a space-planning tool, and Aire, a HVAC management tool—use the rich data collected by the Enlighted sensors to dramatically improve the efficiency of commercial buildings.
“This is no longer about just providing lighting controls,” says Costello. “Installing the Enlighted IoT platform is like giving your building a brain. We can provide software solutions for energy savings, asset tracking, real time information about building utilization, and security for buildings and people, to name a few. The game really has changed.”
Enlighted was recently named 2015 North American Company of the Year by the Cleantech Group, an award shared by past winners Opower and Tesla, and was named again on the annual Cleantech 100 list. The company was also distinguished by AT&T with a Supplier Sustainability Award (2015).