The Week In Review: IoT

Finance
August Home received $25 million in Series C funding, bringing its total funding to $75 million. Existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Comcast Ventures, Maveron, and Qualcomm Ventures were joined by AGL, Liberty Mutual, and SPDG. The Internet of Things startup will use the money to expand operations and to extend its offerings in home access products and services.

Prospera, an agricultural IoT startup, raised $15 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to $22 million. Qualcomm Ventures led the round, joined by Cisco Investments, ICV Partners, and existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners. The company will use the money for global expansion, adding personnel to its customer service and delivery teams, and making a strategic shift from indoor farms to outdoor farms.

Iguazio’s second round of funding brought in $33 million. Pitango Venture Capital led the new round. Verizon Ventures, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, and CME Ventures are new investors in the provider of agile cloud services and real-time analytics for enterprises, joining existing investors Magma Venture Partners, Jerusalem Venture Partners, and Dell Technologies Capital. The startup’s Continuous Analytics Data Platform gets enterprises involved in native cloud applications and real-time data analysis for the IoT. Iguazio is also targeting financial services and telecommunications with the involvement of its new strategic investors.

Commentary
Aruba Research estimates 57% of companies have deployed IoT technology and 85% are seen using IoT by 2019. Arturo Neto writes about IoT market opportunities, challenges, and investments in this piece.

Cybersecurity
IBM Security this week announced that an IBM X-Force Red team is offering security testing for IoT and automotive applications. The Watson IoT Platform will be used in conjunction with those services for IoT developers. Gartner forecasts 61 million new automobiles with data connectivity will be produced in 2020.

Mergers & Acquisitions
Prodea Systems of Richardson, Texas, acquired Arrayent of Redwood City, Calif.; financial terms weren’t disclosed. The companies will continue to offer IoT software under the Prodea brand. Arrayent CEO Cyril Brignone will remain with the merged company as chief revenue officer.

Deals
NXP Semiconductors and Amazon Web Services agreed on NXP’s use of the Amazon Greengrass software on the chip company’s Layerscape Intelligent Gateway platform. Amazon Greengrass extends the AWS Cloud’s capabilities to local devices.

Awards
Cloudera reports Navistar International received a 2017 Best Practices Award from TDWI for its use of the Cloudera Enterprise Data Hub to gather and analyze more than 70 data feeds from connected vehicles in real time, across multiple telematics sources. The award was given in the Big Data category.

Products
Silicon Labs introduced the EFM32GG11 Giant Gecko line of industrial-strength microcontrollers for IoT applications. The low-power MCUs are meant for use in asset tracking, industrial/building automation, personal medical systems, smart meters, and wearable gadgets.

Tech Data’s Cloud Solutions Store now offers IoT software from NEXIONA as part of its SmartForce IoT offering. The NEXIONA platform supports more than 60 machine-to-machine and IoT protocols and communications technologies.

Teledyne LeCroy has brought out the Bluetooth Protocol Expert System software module for development of Bluetooth-based devices to be used in the IoT. The new module works with Frontline Test Equipment’s protocol analyzer software and with Frontline’s Sodera Wideband Bluetooth Protocol Analyzer and the Sodera LE Bluetooth Protocol Analyzer.

LG Electronics introduced five IoT sensors for detecting carbon monoxide, the opening and closing of doors, movement, smoke, and water leaks. These IoT devices connect with LG’s SmarThinQ mobile application for home appliances.

Services
Eseye is making a global cellular connectivity service available on the Amazon Web Services Marketplace’s new IoT landing page. The AnyNet Secure Cellular Connectivity software-as-a-service offering can be used with Eseye’s AnyNet Secure SIM Card, sold on Amazon.com.

Market Research
ABI Research reports that two-thirds of manufacturing respondents in a business-to-business technology survey aren’t using IoT technology in their operations. Of those manufacturers, nearly three-quarters are assessing, investigating, or planning to deploy IoT solutions in the next year. The survey was conducted with 455 U.S.-based companies in nine vertical markets.

Research and Markets has a new report on the building automation and controls market, which it estimates will be worth $50 billion by 2018. Details on the IoT Smart Buildings Market Outlook and Forecasts 2017-2022 report are available here.