“Google’s $3 billion acquisition of Nest made it clear that Internet-connected hardware in the home was a big opportunity. But what about the commercial market?
Y Combinator-backed BuildScience is betting that owners of large commercial office buildings are going to want a similar way of managing heating, lighting, utility metering, and security. But this startup is not building its own hardware. Instead, they are plugging into and building a software platform for existing ventilation and lighting systems, which they say have caught up dramatically in the last five years with the Internet-of-Things wave. They say these systems now make use of thousands of sensors, but there’s no elegant way of viewing or using that data.
The app that Patel and co-founder Jaimal Soni have built lets building owners and property managers drill down into floor-by-floor stats on security and lighting among other areas. They can track down unique issues if, say, heating stops working on a certain floor. That data can also go toward managing costs and energy usage better.”
