In this issue, we unpack Arcadia’s acquisition of Engie Impact.

TL;DR

1. Arcadia has moved into the application layer in a big way, which is sure to have competitive ramifications in the market.

2. With this and other recent moves, Engie has largely unwound its 2010s focus on being a lifecycle energy services provider (Engie called this a “comprehensive energy service model”.)

3. Engie Impact is a quality asset but appears to have stagnated in recent years; we unpack what its revenues might be, how much Arcadia may have paid, and who else might have been interested in this asset.

Summary

Despite our skepticism going into 2026, there have been quite a few deals of note.

This piece covers Arcadia’s acquisition of Engie Impact. There’s a lot of history here, across a few different firms, and we’ll unpack it all. Our analysis includes looking at the following firms:

• Ecova, the predecessor to Engie Impact, which started as a subsidiary of Avista Utilities called Advantage IQ, and focused on utility bill pay services (read: identifying and eliminating late fees and billing errors, primarily for multisite organizations)

• Engie (formerly GDF Suez, the gas utility of France), which scaled up via multiple acquisitions in the US, but has largely unwound those moves in recent years.

• Arcadia, which started primarily as a community solar provider, but has made a significant shift into energy data management and now offers a range of services on top of that data platform (while also splitting out the community solar business into a different entity).

Each of these firms has done significant M+A over the years. We unpack it just below.

Can’t get enough market intel? We have an offering for that. For firms that require more comprehensive market/strategy help on products, partnerships and potential M+A, we have a new Market Intelligence annual subscription offering, with a few different components. Below is a quick overview of this offering.

Firm History

If your looking for the graphical view of what has happened, it’s right below:

Read more

Another issue for you, and stay tuned for another special DEAL Desk coming soon after this one. Here we are covering financings and product launches.

Also, we have a mini-DEAL Desk below, as Meteoviva, a German smart building firm, raised a round. The firm has been around for ~25 years but has limited exposure in the US. Moreover, Meteoviva focuses on HVAC optimization, which is technically feasible, has a solid ROI, but has lagged behind peer applications in user adoption.

Smart Building Insight Resources

In case you haven’t seen it, we’ve significantly updated our “Resources” page for paid subscribers. We also recorded a quick video tour.

A housekeeping item - we are starting to book projects into the second half of 2026 - please reach out if you think you will need our help. From fractional head of product to commercial due diligence projects for investors, our capabilities are wide within smart buildings product and market strategy.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Smart building product launches and related announcements:

• OTI rebranded to Adaptive Buildings to better reflect its long-standing focus on delivering building performance outcomes by continuously optimizing and connecting systems based on real-world usage. OTI is a longstanding firm in the market, but the brand re-emerged when BuildingsIOT sold its software platform to Noda.

• Encycle Technologies, Inc. launched Chorus AI™, a generative AI-powered conversational interface that enabled facility teams to access real-time HVAC insights, streamline workflows, and accelerate fault diagnosis and resolution across building portfolios.

• Walmart launched Upstream Facility Services to extend its in-house maintenance expertise to businesses nationwide, providing HVAC, refrigeration, and general facility services with faster response times, predictive maintenance, and real-time operational visibility.

  • Our take: This is very similar to something Amazon would do. For now, no direct smart building implication, other than Walmart being an even more significant potential partner/client.

Read more

In addition to launching Deal Desk, our new feature to dig into key deals, we covered all the funding rounds, product launches, and partnerships. And, earnings season is wrapping up, with some interesting details on OEM digital strategy (with more to come from us on this next month).

See below for a few of the key news items from this cycle.

Quick updates

Before we get to the main event, we do want to share a things:

• We have a “Resources” page on our newsletter homepage, for subscribers to access our market resources: our M+A tracker, Partnership tracker, and some other materials coming soon. We hope you check it out (and use whenever you need some quick market data).

And, if you want to know more about the resources we have made available, this 3 minute loom video provides a quick tour.

• Also, we now have a project inquiry page, which you can use if you need our help and want more details on just what we can do (and how long it might take!). You can access this simple and quick form here.

Finally - this coming weekend we have a new issue - focused on funding rounds and product launches.

Key news items you may have missed

In case you missed it, here are a few news items of particular interest.

• Does JCI’s Nantum Acquisition Signal a New AI Strategy in Smart Buildings? JCI’s acquisition of Nantum AI reflects a shift in the smart buildings industry from developing digital platforms internally to acquiring specialized AI-driven technologies (at least to supplement home-grown capabilities). Originally created by Rudin to improve building operations, Nantum evolved into a commercial platform focused on energy optimization, occupancy analytics, and HVAC automation. The article also highlights how this is one example of the changing competitive landscape for smart building innovators and OEMs alike. Overall, the deal suggests that major industry players may now see acquisitions as a faster and more effective path to expanding their digital and AI capabilities.

  

• EnerNOC as a TAM lesson for smart building innovators: EnerNOC was highlighted as a cautionary example of how large total addressable market (TAM) assumptions in energy management and smart building software often overstate real opportunities, as the company struggled to scale its software revenues despite strong growth in its core demand response business and ambitious enterprise software goals. While EnerNOC projected a multi-billion-dollar market and aimed for large enterprise contracts, actual software revenues remained relatively small, constrained by fragmented customer needs, low willingness to pay, and the complexity of translating insights into measurable savings and outcomes. This analysis underscored that smart building and energy management is not a single unified market but a fragmented category requiring a mix of software, services, and hardware, making it difficult for any one vendor to dominate.

  

• Is market fragmentation holding back smart building innovation? Market fragmentation remains one of the biggest barriers preventing smart building technology firms from scaling, even as demand for smarter and more efficient buildings continues to grow. The piece explains how the industry’s highly decentralized structure makes product-market fit harder to achieve, slows technology adoption, and leads to inefficient marketing and sales strategies for vendors. It also highlights how fragmented building ownership weakens collaboration and knowledge-sharing among operators, limiting broader market momentum. Overall, the analysis suggests that partnerships, configurable solutions, and smarter channel strategies may be more effective paths to growth than traditional venture-backed expansion models.

  

• Other analyses: We also wrote a hype-free article about AI in smart building tech and covered Asuene, the roll-up you should know,.

What we’re watching

After we published our analysis about JCI acquiring Nantum, we updated it based on JCI’s earnings call:

This brings us back to a post from 2025, about JCI’s technology strategy.

Also, we’re updating a number of our OEM digital resources next month, so stay tuned.

In closing…

That’s just a sneak peek of the work we’re doing every day. If you want to go deeper on these developments - or other news in the market - we have a robust consulting practice in which we dive deeper into product and market strategy for OEMs, investors, and startups. And, if you’d like to discuss a project or connect about the themes above, you can reply to this email or use our new project inquiry page to discuss your needs.

And, on that note, we have recently standardized some of our most common offerings - featured below is our market intelligence subscription, targeted at Corp Dev and Strategy teams at larger OEMs.

Follow us on LinkedIn for more content - and, if you are interested, here are all the articles we've published.   Moreover, check out recordings of our weekly issues of the “Down Low with Joe” on Youtube.

Phew - April was busy. We published a few special posts, and we’ll have another one coming shortly, since Arcadia announced Friday that it is acquiring Engie Impact.

In this issue, we have the standard M+A and partnership news. Moreover, we have a short analysis on Asuene, a climate-tech and smart buildings rollup that you should know.

Also, did you see our analysis about JCI’s acquisition of Nantum? This deal was announced last week, and we published our breakdown on Thursday. And, before that special issue, we reposted our write up for owners and operators: How to buy smart building technology.

Below we have news on Honeywell, Generac, CPower, Autodesk, Optiml, Demand Logic, JLL, CxApp, Vertiv, CannonDesign, Otis, and more.

Our project calendar is filling up into the summer and beyond - please reach out if you think you will need our help (and note, we have a new project inquiry page). We’d be happy to talk - please get in touch soon!

Aamidor Consulting Spotlight

JCI’s acquisition of Nantum is an example of a larger trend. All of the OEMs have been investing heavily in their digital strategies. Along with our consulting work and our ongoing newsletter analyses, we have a cloud-based timeline (which is being updated now) and our OEM digital leaderboard (which also will be updated soon). This is in addition to our M+A and partnership trackers (links are below), plus other resources available to paid newsletter subscribers.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Partnerships:

• Verantum (formerly Phoenix Energy Technologies) and XOi announced a partnership that connected real-time building data with jobsite asset intelligence to help commercial operators improve asset performance, reduce downtime, and make more informed maintenance decisions.

  • Our take: Verantum is not the first firm to focus more on asset management and intelligence, an emerging trend for firms that previously were stuck in an energy savings/efficiency value prop. At the same time, energy rates are rising significantly…

• Tesla, Google, and Carrier launched a coalition to improve grid utilization, aiming to unlock idle capacity and potentially save over $100 billion in energy costs over the next decade.

  • Our take: Carrier has been making some interesting moves on the residential side, starting with a hybrid heat pump. But, building out the ecosystem also is important. Google’s Renew Home also is involved, along with SparkFund and Span.

Read more

This week, JCI announced that it acquired Nantum (formerly Prescriptive Data, and Di-BOSS before that). This write up is about the deal, but also about the bigger trends, and a shift we’re observing in OEM digital strategy…namely a shift from build to buy.

Note that JCI reports earnings on May 6, so we assume there will be more news on this transaction during that call. You’ll find those updates in subsequent issues of Smart Building Insight.

Summary

We’re going to keep these Deal Desk write ups somewhat consistent, with a few standard parts to the analysis. Read on to learn….

• Firm history: Where Nantum came from and what they grew to become

• Context: How this acquisition fits into JCI’s strategy

• Our view: Is this the consolidation that we’ve "(all) been waiting for?

• Industry: What does this mean to smart buildings innovators, investors and potential acquirers?

As you might know, we work with acquirers and innovators - helping firms improve their product strategy (leading to more success in partnerships and potential acquisition) and with investors who seek to map a particular market or diligence a particular firm. Below is a quick overview of the value we can provide.

Firm history: About Nantum

Nantum has a relatively long history, and the key thread is that Rudin, a large real estate firm with 30+ office and residential buildings in New York City, initially built this for its own operations, and then commercialized the solution (while still using it themselves).

Read more

I’m reposting this for our subscribers, in case you missed it.

Before we get to the content, if you are an owner or operator that is buying smart building technology, does this resonate with you? What did we miss?

Feel free to reach out and share your feedback - we’d love to hear from you.

Intro

As software “eats the world” and real estate technology continues to advance, it is hard to keep pace with the state of innovation. Most real estate owners and operators have an expanding array of responsibilities and limited resources to complete them. Smart building technology is one category that is rapidly innovating, but may not yet be a priority of some real estate leaders.

We’ve observed that for most owners and operators, smart building tech remains somewhere between “interesting” and “we’ll get to it eventually.” That’s a problem, because the forces driving adoption such as rising energy costs, tightening sustainability mandates, labor shortages in facility management aren’t waiting. On the vendor landscape side, the challenge isn’t a lack of options. It’s the opposite. The market is fragmented across dozens of vendors, multiple product categories, and overlapping use cases. In fact, as we’ve covered in our Smart Building Insight newsletter, nearly every stage of the value chain is fragmented. An energy management platform might do some of what a sustainability reporting or fault detection tool does. A digital twin vendor might pitch analytics capabilities that sound a lot like automated system optimization. Without a clear framework, it’s easy to get lost in vendor demos and conference pitches without ever making a decision.

In this report, we break down the major categories of smart building technology, what they cost, and what kind of savings they can realistically deliver. Then we walk through a practical procurement approach — from baselining your current tech stack to defining use cases to evaluating vendors — so smart technology buyers can move from “interested” to “implemented.”

Overview of smart building tech

There are a number of ways to categorize smart building technology. But, the two best methods are by type of building, and type of application (which itself is based on the complexity and category of data collected, and how it is analyzed).

Different building types have a range of systems, from a utility energy meter to robust submetering, in addition to complexity of building controls (from a thermostat to a robust building automation system). These systems provide data for a smart building platform, but also may provide some capabilities that could otherwise be included in a smart building solution. There may be some duplication between the capabilities in the standard controls in the building and the supervisory smart building solution, with pros and cons of each.

If we focus on larger, more complex buildings – hundreds of thousands of feet, hundreds or more occupants, and typically used as an office, educational space, or other institutional purpose (such as a hospital), we have a few logical categories of smart building technology:

• Energy management: This can range from a basic utility bill aggregation platform to a more analytical offering that utilizes 15-minute interval data (usually real time, or near real time), to identify anomalies, support benchmarking between sites, and provides more proactive visibility than a utility bill arriving a few weeks after the billing period.

• Analytics. A bit of a catch-all, but typically focusing on more gradual data from some base building systems, such as the building automation system, to identify specific equipment issues or even flag maintenance issues before they would otherwise be observed. Fault detection and diagnostics is the most well-known type of application in this category.

• Automated system optimization. Moving beyond simply analyzing and flagging issues, there are some platforms that provide supervisory control over existing systems, which can drive savings and avoid maintenance issues without requiring a human to be in the loop. For buildings that are at risk of receiving a significant energy demand charge, such technologies could pre-cool a space, or let temperatures drift slightly – without requiring a building operator to get involved – to reduce those demand peaks. There are a range of other common applications for this technology, but in general, it delivers value without requiring a human to be all that involved.

• Digital twin. This category was initially defined as a different way to visualize data and model scenarios (e.g., what if employees don’t come into the office tomorrow), but now it tends to provide similar use cases as the categories above, though sometimes using a more BIM-style mapping interface to show all the data collected. We are including this category because it has some promise and should at least be on your radar if you are looking to procure technology in this industry.

There also are a large number of types of firms that offer these solutions, from OEMs which have built out cloud-based technology layers that fit naturally with their strong experience in equipment, base building systems, and also lifecycle services, to innovative startups which offering similar kinds of technology, but as an agnostic vendor seeking to integrate with any and all previously deployed systems. Moreover, there are facility management service providers, local and regional integrators and installers, and also adjacent firms, such as energy services firms, which sell energy reduction guarantees with no capital required upfront. All of these firms, and more, may offer smart building technology. These solutions could be built in house, or delivered via a partner.

While over simplified, this chart highlights the key categories of solution, general pricing benchmarks, and estimated savings. Note that the savings per building typically varies significantly, and achieved savings in a particular building will typically “average down” when the solution is deployed across a wider portfolio. This is usually a factor of some buildings being run well, and others being a long time from an audit or other proactive maintenance.

Why smart building tech matters

While it may be under the radar, smart building technologies are emerging in importance to owners and operators who want to operate and deliver the best buildings and best space. As amenity-rich buildings focus on more than just great physical features – food and beverage, health clubs, etc – they should consider the operational technology layer, which includes smart building technologies.

Moreover, there are a number of key trends that are driving demand for smart building technology, such as:

• Demand for more amenitized space. Physical amenities are no longer enough, as tenants expect a personalized digital layer that can help them access their offices, find flexible spaces in a pinch, and even monitor and control comfort, indoor air quality, and lighting (daylight vs artificial light). Providing these amenities requires an interface to the base building systems – a core part of smart building technology.

• Labor shortage. Many facility engineering progressionals are retiring, and with their departures are also significant losses in knowledge of building operations. Moreover, to attract new employees to replace these team members, more advanced and modern technology is required. Smart building technology can help with both.

• Flexibility to hire best-of-breed service providers. This may not rise to the attention of senior real estate leaders, but related to the labor shortage are legacy service provider relationships for base building systems (fire/life safety, access control, HVAC, lighting, etc). In many cases the systems installed drive restrictions on which firms can be called for ongoing service. This strong product/system and service provider relationship can be detrimental to the building’s operation; some smart building technology platforms unlock these data streams.

• Increased energy costs. Energy costs are going up, and with their rise, there is more demand for energy efficiency. Energy costs are no longer predictable and manageable. Smart building technologies can help to identify waste and automate optimization of some systems to deliver greater savings (energy, operational and staff efficiency).

• Sustainability and decarbonization. Similar to the energy efficiency point, there also is an increasing need to benchmark and track building performance such as energy / carbon emissions. This can be driven by local laws or investors and other stakeholders.

How to procure smart building technology

So, how do leading organizations procure these technologies? We have a few recommendations based on work helping some firms procure these technologies and years of experience providing commercial due diligence on behalf of investors or to help vendors with competitive benchmarking and product strategy.

We recommend buyers of these solutions begin with a three step approach:

Baseline current technology stack

Let’s start with an example: if a given building automation system is scheduled to be replaced in the coming years, a solution that integrates seamlessly with that BAS may not be that compelling over the long term. But, if you aren’t aware of this plan or even the presence of this vendor’s product, it’s unlikely that you will be well-positioned to acquire software to complement it.

So, as a first step, it is important to first understand the technology being used across your organization’s buildings – and who is using those solutions. This baselining exercise includes building automation systems (vendors and vintages), other base building control systems (e.g., security/access, lighting, other), and any cloud-based energy management or sustainability solutions. And, there may be more – but understanding what is currently being used will help identify gaps and drive solid future procurement decisions. Lastly, service contracts with firms with oversight of these systems, in addition to capital plans, also could be considered.

Run a wide process that narrows, not a narrow process that stalls.

Given that building portfolios have a wide array of systems and vendor relationships, there also are plenty of stakeholders. While it can be difficult to get all of these teams on the same page, we’ve observed that taking a narrow approach may cause procurement to stall. There is a sweet spot: understand the state of relevant systems in your portfolio (number 1, above), AND also be aware of the stakeholders using those systems. Communicate with them, take their feedback, and when relevant, include them in assessment and buying decisions.

There are many solutions in the wide smart buildings category overlap – a facility management offering likely has overlap with energy management, which has overlap with sustainability data management. There may be good reasons to buy individual solutions for each, but there should be some discussion of this approach (it shouldn’t just happen organically due to a logistical or communication issue). More tactically, there is a difference between buyers and users; both are important but play different roles. For example, tenant occupied buildings might have individual occupiers who use some of these capabilities (e.g., tenant billing), but they are not going to be involved directly in purchasing.

Identify key use cases or problems to solve

Smart building solutions deliver a multitude of solutions, but not all offerings do everything. And, not all building owners need offerings that “do everything”. There are a range of drivers that you may want to achieve, and all will be important to your portfolio. Mapping procurement decisions to one (or a few) key use cases will help to find the most compelling offerings (that actually solve those problems). It is more important to define what you want from these solutions than to let vendors wow you with their offerings. Lastly, some use cases are related: while sustainability mandates may be declining in focus, energy costs are rising, and some smart building technologies will address both of these issues.

Building on the last point above, we’ve observed a tendency to scout the market by seeing what is available – this can be driven by conference attendance or just sitting in on virtual webinars and other marketing activities. While all this has a place, it isn’t the first step in the procurement journey. In fact, it is far more important to spend time internally both identifying all the key stakeholders, but also understanding the current solutions used, gaps in those offerings, and the value proposition of investing in new technologies. For example, a firm may see rising energy costs as a financial risk, but also may recognize that the organization has very poor visibility into how it uses energy (especially at the portfolio level). This problem statement could be refined and detailed even further – and this serves as a strong set of requirements in which to go find vendors that can help.

And, given the fragmentation in the market – dozens or more vendors – it is important to define your needs carefully and early, as this will help to focus your vendor research efforts by promptly reducing the universe of viable vendors. In fact, the entire value chain is fragmented, as we analyzed in our newsletter, Smart Building Insight.

We have some other tactical tips to buyers:

• Standard pricing. Define a framework for vendors to present pricing, and use it to do a like-for-like comparison across all firms.

• Implementation matters too. Make sure to focus not only on product features, but deployment and implementation capabilities (and historical performance). We find that many vendors underestimate the costs and timelines for implementation, which can be detrimental to the buyers. And, this is a big effort for building owners and operators, so it’s good practice to ask each vendor what they need from you during implementation.

• Gather feedback from real customers. When you have a shortlist of vendors, request feedback or an opportunity to speak to each firm’s existing customers and ask about their experiences. In addition, review case studies to see real world results. It’s common for buyers to seek out references from clients in similar industries, but we think it also is important to review case studies and examples from clients that had the same problems. For example: an educational institution seeking to address comfort issues more proactively could find reference clients that also are universities, but it should also see if hospitals, lab space or other complex building clients had similar problems and resolution with a particular vendor.

• Product vs service. Given the fragmentation in the market, you may find that some firms have a product that has been built for a few of that vendor’s clients (and may or may not work for you). But, at the same time, it is possible that the vendor has a flexible kit of features that can be configured for each individual client. We have seen pros and cons for each approach – and simply recommend that any buyer at least is aware of both models. Some products work very well for a given client, but that user may have different specific goals and needs as your organization.

• Vendor churn is low. Based on our 15+ years of experience in this industry, we tend to see that vendor churn is very low. That means that most buyers stick with their vendors for years. For buyers, regardless of how long you expect to use a given product, it is likely that you will use it for a longer period of time.

Smart building technology is compelling and ready for deployment across buildings of all sizes and complexities. But, the fragmentation in the market, in addition to different applications and support for different use cases means that procurement processes must be diligent and goal-oriented. These recommendations should help you get started.

Follow us on LinkedIn for more content - and, if you are interested, here are all the articles we've published.   Moreover, check out recordings of our weekly issues of the “Down Low with Joe” on Youtube.

Buckle up, we have a lot of product launches, and even more funding rounds. Covering smart buildings, data-center related deals, and a fair number of facility management investment rounds, too - there is a lot to cover.

Additionally, we’ve drafted a piece about AI in smart buildings. This is a topic that comes up frequently in advisory calls with clients, during events, and even scoping calls with prospective clients. This write up incudes some of our key thoughts, and we’re happy to speak more if anything piques your interest.

As a quick rundown, in this issue, we have:

• Many funding rounds, from early stage (innovative smart building tech) to later stage (data centers). We cover news from Helix Earth, Convene, Flair, Budderfly and many more.

• A large number of product launches, to. We have news from Phoenix ET (now Verantum), Eaton, Entouch. VTS, Planon (Schneider), Siemens, XOi, Switch Automation, and more.

• Our market analysis section includes a review of AI in smart buildings, the first of subsequent posts on this topic.

It’s also a mini-conference season, with a trip to Niagara Summit a few weeks ago (some podcasts form the event will be dropping soon), and a trip later this week to CxEnergy in Chicago. Please say hi if you are going to be in Chicago.

In case you haven’t seen it, we’ve significantly updated our “Resources” page for paid subscribers. This is a good reference site for our market intelligence resources.

A housekeeping item - we are starting to book projects into spring 2026 - please reach out if you think you will need our help. From fractional head of product to commercial due diligence projects for investors, our capabilities are wide within smart buildings product and market strategy.

Quick thought…

This is rough, but it touches a lot of the issue’s we’ve observed in our work with smart building innovators, and builds on the point we’ve made in posts and this newsletter about marketing problems vs. product problems. Check out our post on Linkedin, and feel free to comment. And, if you think this might be a problem you need help addressing, contact us.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Smart building product launches and related announcements:

• ENTOUCH announced that Eric Denton succeeded Jon Bolen as CEO as part of a planned leadership transition driven by long-term succession planning.

• Phoenix Energy Technologies rebranded as Verantum to reflect its expansion into data-driven HVAC/R lifecycle management and operational performance solutions.

• Eaton launched Brightlayer Energy, an AI-powered energy management and optimization software designed to improve building efficiency, reduce costs, and support emissions compliance across global markets.

  • Our take: Brightlayer has been a cloud-based offering for a few years, and this is more focused on energy management within that product. It also fits with one of our 2026 predictions - that this year would be a decision point for OEMs on digital strategy. Like Trane last month, launching Trane Cloud, we’ve seen the OEMs continue to invest in their digital and cloud-based offerings (no pull back or pivot).

    

Read more

We have a big episode to kick off April - and that’s not a joke!

Let’s get right to it:

• EnerNOC is no longer active in energy management software, as it was acquired by Enel and that business was spun out as Hatch (acquired by Measurabl). But, while the firm was public in the 2010s, it provided a wide range of interesting data points that can inform current growth strategies in smart buildings. See below for our full analysis, and a teaser for all subscribers just below.

• A number of acquisitions, with a few in the data center space. Also, WiredScore was acquired and Asuene made another purchase (this is a name that you probably should know - more to come on this in future issues).

• There also are a number of notable partnerships, including Optiml, aedifion, CxApp, Butlr, Disruptive Technologies, and more.

• The public firms section includes a variety of interesting news items, including an interesting take on the recurring revenue nature of Trane’s business, an interesting presentation from Generac, and earnings from Acuity and CBRE.

As a longer preview, our market analysis section includes a deep dive into EnerNOC’s performance, their estimates of TAM and their inability to growth into that massive market opportunity. A short excerpt is just below:

EnerNOC was a public company for nearly 10 years, before being acquired by Enel. There are a few years worth of Investor Day presentations where they lay out their EIS thesis and the performance of this business. And, there are robust financial reports for all those years as a publicly traded firm. In this article, we dive into the TAM estimates, how it worked out, and what it means for innovative companies looking to grow in this market today.

This is a cautionary tale for early stage firms that are raising large amounts of capital justified by a large TAM. It also is a natural continuation of our recent article about market fragmentation. One takeaway: there is not a single market for smart building and energy management technology, there are many markets, and they can be logically grouped as a category (but they are not a category that a single vendor can dominate). Therefore, most TAM estimates overstate the market opportunity for any individual firm. We also wrote an article last fall on the controls TAM, which is a ceiling (for now) on the smart building market TAM. But, more broadly, we are increasingly convinced that there is no tens-of-billions of dollars of TAM for an individual vendor to exploit. There may be a tens-of-billions of dollars of TAM that many different vendors can each grab a share of. Below we write more about these concepts in light of EnerNOC’s performance years ago.

A quick housekeeping item - our project calendar is filling up into the summer and beyond - please reach out if you think you will need our help (and note, we have a new project inquiry page). We’d be happy to talk - please get in touch soon!

Aamidor Consulting Offering Spotlight

Does your demo need an update? Or just an independent review and critique? We can review your sales pitch and demo and provide actionable feedback on how to improve it. For firms that have a strong top-of-funnel lead generation system, but need help converting more into paid clients - this is one approach to move those numbers in the right direction.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Partnerships:

• Optiml, Green Fusion, and aedifion partnered to connect building-level energy optimization with portfolio-level decision intelligence, enabling real estate owners to accelerate decarbonization while improving efficiency and capital planning

  • Our take: Optiml recently raised money, as did Cambio - both fit into our Enterprise decarbonization analytics (EDA) concept. Given the overlap between different offerings, a partnership like this makes sense for the buyers and users, and reduces product overlap amongst these firms.

• Adding to this, Optiml and Scaler partnered to integrate real estate data infrastructure with decision intelligence, enabling institutional investors to optimize capital allocation, sustainability strategies, and portfolio performance through a unified, data-driven system.

• CXApp Inc. expanded its AI workplace solutions by partnering with TouchSource to integrate agentic AI into over 11,000 commercial property touchpoints across the U.S. There is much more below on CxApp, as the firm reported earnings and has been undergoing a significant transition in what it sells and how it sells.

• Data centers continue to be a big area of focus, and EPRI, NVIDIA, Prologis, and InfraPartners collaborated to develop distributed micro data centers near substations, aiming to support AI inference demand while improving grid efficiency and reducing transmission strain.

Read more

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and hope you all are stuffed with pizza or pie from Pi Day. We have a big issue, which includes:

• New rounds from Verdigris, Optiml, Zero Homes, and a number of data center related deals.

• Product launches from Cambio, Kode Labs, ABB, Ontoly, Clockworks, nZero and more.

• An analysis on market fragmentation which focuses on one of the root cause problems in our industry.

We also published an issue of In Case You Missed it last week - check it out here for the greatest hits from early in the year.

Aamidor Consulting Podcast Spotlight

After a break for the holidays, Lewis and Joe recorded a new market update podcast, in which we discussed a few of the bigger news items to start 2026:

• Trane Technologies launched Trane Cloud

• Copeland acquired Bueno

• Clockworks Analytics raised a round from Carom Growth Partners

• Cambio and Optiml raised new early-stage rounds

Check it out here.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Smart building product launches and related announcements:

• Facilio announced the launch of its Autonomous AI Agent Suite, Facilio Atom, designed to automate up to 40% of manual back-office workflows in facilities management across service, compliance, finance, and operations.

• KODE Labs launched EnerG, an AI-enabled platform designed to centralize utility, sustainability, and performance data to help real estate organizations optimize costs, improve reporting, and advance decarbonization strategies across enterprise portfolios.

  • Our take: Moving into a competitive position with some of the other utiltiy data platforms, such as Engie, Schneider Resource Advisor, Conservice, EnergyCAP and others. Logical platform approach - grows surface area for currernt and future clients.

• WellStat was named the recipient of the Commercial & Industrial Market Award from Con Edison for delivering top demand response performance through its automated energy management platform.

Read more

This issue revisits our best analyses of the first tw…

Read more

It’s earnings season, and there’s a lot to report from the bigger OEMs. As for a quick rundown of the key parts of the newsletter:

• Partnership news from ReTech Advisors, Voltus, Axiom Cloud and Lumen Energy.

• Acquisitions by Trane, JCI, Legrand, Deepki and more.

• Big update on earnings season, in which we break down what all the key public firms said about technology and smart buildings (along with other interesting nuggets).

Also, Joe was featured on an episode of It’s a Controls Problem, which you can check out here.

Finally, a housekeeping item - our project calendar is filling up into the spring and summer 2026 - please reach out if you think you will need our help (and note, we have a new project inquiry page). We’d be happy to talk - please get in touch soon!

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Partnerships:

• RE Tech Advisors announced a strategic partnership with Audette to deliver scalable, data-driven decarbonization solutions that helped real estate owners reduce transition risk, unlock asset-level value, and accelerate compliance with evolving energy and sustainability standards.

  • Our take: Interesting in light of our write up on Cambio’s raise. And relevant and competitive with other peers, such as Measurabl, Engie, and others.

• Nemetschek Group announced a strategic partnership with Ingram Micro to expand access to advanced AEC digital solutions and accelerate digital transformation across the Middle East and North Africa region.

Read more

We have another big issue for you, with a lot of product launches from the OEMs, a wrap up of relevant funding rounds (mostly seed, with some larger rounds too), and a deep analysis on Cambio’s series A (and what it means to sustainability software more generally). So let’s get right to it.

In this issue, here’s the quick summary of key news:

• Major OEMs such as Schneider, Carrier, Trane and Johnson Controls all launched new products.

• And innovators such as PointGrab and VergeSense did too.

• Funding rounds are across the board, from corporate venturing (Legrand), larger deals (osapiens, now a unicorn), and smaller seed rounds (such as Derapi).

• And, on funding, we go deep on Cambio’s large series A ($18M): An analysis of the fundraising round dynamics; what Cambio does differently, and revisiting our enterprise decarbonization analytics deep-dive. We also focus on competitive activity in this space and estimate the market opportunity based on public data on sustainability reporting.

We continue to update our “Resources” page for paid subscribers, which now has our public stock tracker - live anytime. We’re also starting to add the latest versions of our industry trackers to this page for quick reference. Check out this quick video tour, if you want to see what is accessible here.

Quick thought…

It’s a few months old, but Jensen Huang from NVIDIA had an interesting point about market sizing and ability to capture it. This is from an interview in September 2025. (This is the transcript of Jensen speaking.)

We’ve seen a number of discussions recently about market size in our industry (and we touch on this below in our Cambio deep dive), which happens to be a key driver behind many early stage investments in this space, too. We aren’t sure it is feasible to capture 100 percent of the market in such a fragmented space (more on that later), but we do think that underwriting investments by assuming 5 percent (or so) adoption may also be problematic.

Aamidor Consulting Client Spotlight

Last week we kicked off a sales pitch review project with an early-stage energy management solution. During our first demo, we walked through the offering and talked about methods to identify prospect budget, streamline onboarding once the contract is signed (and how it is presented), and talked about value differentiation. We’ll wrap this project up in the coming weeks. And, below we share some key details on this offering. Please reach out if this is interesting to you.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Smart building product launches and related announcements:

• Trane Technologies launched Trane Cloud, a centralized digital platform designed to unify building data, applications, and analytics into a single secure hub to improve operational efficiency, reliability, and sustainability across building portfolios.

  • Our take: This launch supplements and clarifies last years’ Trane Connect launch, as that product is the cloud portal providing data access (perhaps comparable to JCI’s Digital Vault) and this Cloud launch focuses on data insights - energy management, equipment tracking, and connects to Trane’s intelligent services. We updated our graphic of OEM cloud based platforms with this new offering, though given the connection to Trane Connect, it is very related.

• Two launches from Schneider Electric; first the firm launched Resource Advisor+, an AI-powered energy and sustainability intelligence platform from its SE Advisory Services practice, which unifies emissions, supply chain sustainability, climate risk, and reporting into a single system. We also added this launch to the tracker just above.

  • Our take: Schenider claims to process 1M energy invoices every month (worldwide), which aligns with the other metric of 250,000 buildings utilizing Schneider IOT offerings.

Read more

We’re getting back on our schedule after the holidays - and have a big update for you.

But first, are you attending AHR this week? If so, let’s meet up. Just reply and we’ll find time to connect in person in Las Vegas.

This issue covers all the key M+A and partnership activity - for more on specific features:

• Check out our poll question just below! Your feedback is valued!

• We’re holding our wrap up of public firms as earnings season is still occurring. But, we do have a shorter review of some of performance and tech strategy of some of the key facility management firms - an important cohort of smart building solution providers. We’ll continue to track these firms more in coming issues, too.

• We dig into one big deal - Bueno was acquired by Copeland. We also have a shorter analysis of another interesting deal, Scanalytics being acquired by East West Manufacturing.

• Not as many partnerships announced in January, but we have a few, featuring Phoenix, Encycle, and Siemens.

POLL QUESTION: We often dig into key deals in the market - beyond just a quick news item, but also not a full market analysis. Where do you think we should publish them? Please respond to our poll below to help us better orient the newsletter to what you want to learn and analyze (and how you want to receive it).

Quick side note, don’t forget to check out our podcast! Lewis Martin and Joe Aamidor host the “Down Low with Joe”, which focuses on market developments and includes interviews with RE decarb/digitization innovators. Check out our YouTube channel or Spotify.

Finally, a housekeeping item - our project calendar is filling up for the coming months - please reach out if you think you will need our help (and note, we have a new project inquiry page). We’d be happy to talk - please get in touch soon!

Aamidor Consulting Offering Spotlight

Do you want to go deeper on the market than what we provided in our newsletter (and resources)?

We also offer a market intelligence subscription for corp dev, strategy and product teams who may more access and also more time to work with us to better understand this market. See below for a high-level overview of this offering.

We are investing heavily in our coverage of how leading industry firms are attacking the smart buildings market - with a focus on what this means to startups / innovators, services firms that may compete with or partner with these firms, and other stakeholders (such as investors). We'd love to talk to you about how can help.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Partnerships:

• Phoenix Energy Technologies announced a strategic partnership with Disruptive Technologies that combined enterprise HVAC, refrigeration, and lighting optimization with sensor data to deliver deeper insights, improved portfolio benchmarking, and more automated workflows across large, multi-site commercial building portfolios.

  • Our take: Disruptive Technologies has a wide portfolio of simple and easy-to-use sensors, which can be integrated with cloud platforms such as Phoenix to monitor temps, water/leakage, and even doors that are open/closed. Disruptive has been one of the more successful middleware players in the market, with years of deployments.

• Siemens expanded its collaboration with Nvidia to integrate industrial and physical AI across manufacturing, simulation, and electronic design workflows, aiming to enable fully AI-driven factories, autonomous digital twins, and accelerated industrial innovation.

Read more

We’re back after just 1 week, as we get back into the 2026 and catch up after a pause during the holidays. We also delayed this issue for the long weekend. (Oh, and that Hoosiers victory last night!!!!) There’s not as much to report, given the slow news cycle over the holidays - but see below for recent fundraising news, product launches, and a few new funds formed, too.

Are you attending AHR Feb 2-4? If so, let’s meet up. Just reply and we’ll find time to connect in person in Las Vegas.

We also published two issues earlier in the month. First, our ICYMI issue wrapped up the key topics from our Nov and December 2025 issues. And, last week we published our update on M+A, partnerships and public firm news. This one also included our 2026 predictions. What did we miss?

Looking ahead…

We have a number of other analysis pieces scheduled for the coming months in Smart Building Insight - if you haven’t already subscribed to the full newsletter issues, you are missing out.

• Updated data center infrastructure and market map

• Review of OEM M+A plans (based on public statements)

• We’ll revisit our Energy Star analysis from many years ago (e.g., using EStar Portfolio Manager data to estimate the market size for smart buildings)

• Estimating the TAM for the smart building market, building on our controls TAM analysis late last year.

• A few other special deep dives - and much more!

Also, we’ve significantly updated our “Resources” page for paid subscribers, which now has our public stock tracker - live anytime.

A housekeeping item - we are starting to book projects into spring 2026 - please reach out if you think you will need our help. From fractional head of product to commercial due diligence projects for investors, our capabilities are wide within smart buildings product and market strategy.

Aamidor Consulting Client Spotlight

We’re updating our standard offerings for all of our key client types. Below we share some key details on a new o ne, our pitch deck / sales pitch review. Please reach out if this is interesting to you.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Smart building product launches and related announcements:

• Phaidra introduced Phaidra Prism, an LLM-first analytics and observability platform that unified siloed data across data center systems to deliver faster, clearer, and more actionable operational insights through natural language interaction.

  • Our take: One of the leading innovators in smart building tech, focused on data centers - the fastest growing vertical.

• Measurabl announced that Maureen Waters had been appointed CEO, with founder Matt Ellis transitioning to Executive Chairman after leading a planned leadership succession.

Read more

First, Happy New Year! We have a bunch of news items to start 2026, and also our 2026 outlook on tap, below. Also check out a few other special features just below.

As for a quick rundown of the highlights:

• See our 2026 outlook, with predictions and what we expect in the new year.

• We’re soft-launching our smart building innovator leaderboard, also just below - take a look.

• There were a fair number of acquisitions announced at the end of the year, including Resideo, Trane, Vertiv, Conservice and CannonDesign.

• Just a few partnerships, including Kode Labs, Siemens, Leap and Enel.

• A few public firm updates: Acuity and Signify

Quick side note, don’t forget to check out our podcast! Lewis Martin and Joe Aamidor host the “Down Low with Joe”, which focuses on market developments and includes interviews with RE decarb/digitization innovators. Check out our YouTube channel or Spotify.

Did you miss it? We soft-launched our startup leaderboard and are looking to refine it and then use it regularly to track the market. We’ve already heard from a few other firms that will be included in future iterations.

If you want to be included: please reach out with data that is publicly-available (press release, website, etc), which we can use to update your firm’s position.

Finally, a housekeeping item - our project calendar is filling up for Q1 2026 - please reach out if you think you will need our help (and note, we have a new project inquiry page). We’d be happy to talk - please get in touch soon!

Aamidor Consulting Client Spotlight

We continue to do a lot of partnership strategy and market landscape work in the industry - with larger incumbents, investors, smaller innovators and other stakeholders. We can quickly grow your network in the market, better target your pitch to prospective partners, and also help build a feedback loop that drives prospective partner feedback into the product roadmap. At the same time, firms looking to find prospective partners (or investment opportunities) can build their top of funnel much quicker when we are involved. See below for a quick slide highlighting part of our unique process to deliver value to smart building stakeholders.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Before we get into the other sections, did you see that we now have a “Resources” page to our newsletter homepage? This is for paid subscribers and includes: our M+A tracker, Partnership tracker, and some other materials coming soon. We hope you check it out (and use whenever you need some quick market data).

Market Analysis: 2026 outlook

Aamidor Consulting continues to provide insight to smart building innovators in this section. This month, our outlook for the new year.

What’s going to happen this year in smart buildings? Even we don’t have a crystal ball, but we do have some strong views about the year ahead. We’re laying them out here - and would love to hear from you. Do you think we’re right? Or maybe we’re missing something?

High energy costs: A game changer or a false signal? There is an expectation that energy costs will rise, and in many locales, costs already have started to rise. At its face, that is good for smart building technology, as the higher costs should drive facility owners and operators to invest more in technology to reduce those costs. It’s also different from the past 10+ years, when many portfolio owners were happy to manage energy costs consistently (they would prefer to avoid wide swings over driving costs down incrementally each year). Now, if energy rates go up, costs will rise even if the buildings are managed consistently (energy use stays flat, costs go up). At the same time, we aren’t sure that this plays out and drives massive adoption of smart building and energy management solutions, and we’re even less sure that it drives consolidation in the market. The key dynamics: dozens of viable vendors and a perception of high switching costs - both of them likely keep the market in a similar state, even with a new driver to adopt this technology (see below for more of these dynamics). Additionally, we’re not sure energy rate increases will cause a massive shift to of building operators acquiring new technology to drive energy efficiency (though at the margins it may happen more frequently).

AI - not a panacea, but still worth your attention. We are long-term bullish on AI in our industry, but short-term skeptical, since there are plenty of barriers to adoption (e.g., data and organizational readiness). You can’t just switch off your attention to AI, but it probably won’t revolutionize building operations in 2026, either. We think there will continue to be a lot of funding and product innovation around AI, but there also will be plenty of marketing innovation (noise) among this. We think ‘baby steps’ is the right strategy for 2026.

More vendors will seek ‘the channel’. Vendors, take note - your go-to-market may need a refresh. There are many channels to market in smart buildings technology, but “the channel” typically refers to an indirect approach - through distributors and independent integrators, or master systems integrators, or just any third-party that has a relationship with a building owner/operator. The channel is mostly used for traditional HVAC and controls sales (though some software firms have also focused on selling their solutions through these channels. That has had mild success, though also has faced some challenges. For one, these channel partners may not be well equipped to sell software - which is a different approach than hardware and services. Additionally, most building systems are sold based on a well-established requirement (e.g., specification), and not necessarily an ROI. But software in our industry IS sold on the basis of ROI. All that said, we see 2026 as being an inflection point in the channel approach - specifically, selling to those channel partners for their own use, or to enable them to deliver better service to their end clients is where the market is maturing to. (And note, we have a standard offering focused on helping innovators think through partnership strategy - see here for a sneak peek, and contact us if you want to learn more.)

Read more

Th…

Read more

First, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all of our valued readers. We appreciate the continued support of our writing and analysis - including friendship and professional relationships with many of you. We hope you all are able to relax over the holidays and reset for 2026.

It’s not been long…we’re back after just 1 week, after our special deep dive on small commercial building controls was published last week. Check out that issue if you missed it. This mid-month issue is focused on product launches, new fundraising activity, and new investment funds.

Let’s get right to the issue, which includes:

• Product launches from R Zero, Johnson Controls, Trane, Verdigris, ABB, IBM, Schneider, Coppertree Analytics, Neeve and more.

• Funding rounds from Entouch, Redaptive, GreenFi, Enerin, Quilt, Phaidra and a bunch of other data center innovators, and more.

• A few new funds formed, too.

• We revisit Trane’s acquisition of HVAC innovator BrainboxAI, updating our timeline to reflect recent commentary from Trane on its digital building strategy. This is a deeper review than we we shared in our first edition of our Digital Leaderboard.

• A soft-launch of our startup leaderboard - we’re tracking the scale of as many startups as we can, and would love your feedback on if you’d like to:

  • Be included in the leaderboard.

  • Have existing or new data that is publicly-available (press release, website, etc), which we can use to update your firm’s position.

There also have been a few media mentions worth sharing:

• Lewis Martin and Joe Aamidor were joined by Jake Elder of Energy Impact Partners to host a live LinkedIn discussion about data centers and energy load growth.

• Joe was a guest on Propmodo’s webinar focused on proptech trends for the year ahead.

A housekeeping item - we are starting to book projects into 2026 - please reach out if you think you will need our help. From fractional head of product to commercial due diligence projects for investors, our capabilities are wide within smart buildings product and market strategy.

Aamidor Consulting Client Spotlight

We’re updating our standard offerings for all of our key client types. Below we share some key details on two - our Startup Scale-up offering and our Market Intelligence Subscription (which targets OEM Strategy, Corp Dev and Product teams). Please reach out if either of these are interesting to you.

Startup Scale-up - targeting startups and innovators that need a rapid outside opinion on product strategy.

Market Intelligence Subscription - targeting OEM / incumbent Corporate Development, Strategy and Product teams.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Smart building product launches and related announcements:

• R-Zero offered NYC building owners a no-upfront-cost energy audit using real-time occupancy data to cut energy use by up to 25%, improve indoor air quality, and support Local Law 97 compliance through a shared savings model. As part of this, the firm launched a new tool, ProspectorNY, a data analytics solution that identifies immediate energy savings, compliance risks, and ROI opportunities for NYC commercial buildings amid rising energy costs and stringent Local Law 97 requirements.

  • Our take: LL 97 is driving a lot of product investments - moreover, this launch fits with our thesis about enterprise decarbonization analytics offerings.

• Measurabl appointed Maureen Waters as CEO, transitioning co-founder Matt Ellis to Executive Chairman as the company entered its next phase of customer-driven growth focused on expanding access to trusted, investment-grade sustainability data for real estate.

Read more

Before we jump in: There’s still one more standard issue next week, and then our second In Case You Missed It (ICYMI) issue going out in early January, before we start up our standard issues in the new year.

Small commercial building controls - our take

A few months ago, we shared a few teasers as the start of our analysis of the controls opportunity in small commercial buildings (also known as light controls). You can find the first piece here, which argued that the opportunity for controls in small commercial buildings isn’t as significant as the top line numbers would indicate. For one, many small commercial buildings are 5,000 sq ft or less, comparable to a very large home (which may just require a dumb and not-connected thermostat). Additionally, a significant number of commercial buildings - about 17 percent - are not heated (and even more are not cooled), which also removes the need to deploy controls. Moreover, the demand for commercial controls will be dependent on the building’s use. That article focused on some buildings that are not good fits for controls, but this article focuses on those buildings that are.

And, as a follow up, we started to highlight some of the verticals that are interesting opportunities for light controls, such as retail sites, restaurants, and grocery stores. We’ll get into more details here.

In this analysis, we will:

1. More deeply analyze the market opportunity for small commercial controls

2. Highlight that some of these building types are very interesting targets for small commercial controls, and estimate the number of sites in the US that are viable targets

3. Estimate current vendor penetration in the market and vendor fragmentation

4. Consider the value proposition for small commercial controls

PART 1: The market opportunity

In the first teaser post, we provided some details on the building types where controls likely aren’t needed in small commercial buildings. But, where are they needed? The key verticals are listed below (and also analyzed in some depth in our second teaser):

• Restaurants: Many chain restaurants operate and monitor the portfolio (or portions of it) centrally and consistently.

• Retail: Similar operating approach to restaurants, with similar equipment (but less refrigeration).

• Grocery: Mission critical refrigeration assets, centrally/regionally owned and managed.

• And, there are some secondary markets where controls may be used:

  • Small offices: Very fragmented in all ways, but some of the 50K sq ft and less buildings could also use light controls.

  • Education (specifically preschool, elementary and middle schools): These sites may be small enough for a less robust building automation option, but the owners typically also have high schools and more complex buildings. They may contract with a single vendor for traditional BAS.

  • Warehouse: May be owned by institutional investors (who also own other asset classes); of the spaces that are conditioned, they may simply have thermostats and rooftop units.

And, as we’ll show below, there is more concentration in owners/operators among the first three bullets above - especially when compared to other asset classes.

As a secondary target, small office buildings are viable for light controls. But, given the varied and separated spaces (sometimes dictated by tenants), we think the required product offering may be fundamentally different than what is deployed in a retail or restaurant space. There also are many very small offices (just over half of all office buildings in the US are under 5,000 sq ft - 518,000 of the total 970,000 office buildings). But, only 188,000 office buildings have a building automation system (though 719,000 of them report conducting regular HVAC maintenance, another sign of some sophistication in operations). A 5,000 sq foot office building may spend $3/sq ft on energy per year, so a BAS for $1.50-4/sq ft (plus the ongoing service costs) will likely not have a strong ROI. Overall, it seems like some of the non-BAS smaller offices are a good target for small commercial controls, if one can get around the fragmented buyer landscape. But, it’s harder to estimate just how many of them are real targets. Among the 500,000+ small office buildings - some of them likely operate like homes - in fact, 321,000 office buildings have residential air conditioners.

As we noted in the past teasers, there are a number of building types with many small buildings. But, when looking at the characteristics, it’s clear they just aren’t going to be targets for building automation systems (heavy or light). Our first teaser covered this, noting that, for example, many warehouses aren’t heated or cooled (and warehouses make up 17 percent of all buildings). There are plenty of other examples, too…

Another example: service buildings, which include

Read more

First, for those Stateside who were celebrating a long Thanksgiving weekend with family, we hope you had a great holiday - filled with quality time, a good meal, and lasting memories!

And, as scheduled, we’re back with our first issue of December issue, focused on all the recent M+A, partnerships and also public firm news. As for a quick rundown of the key parts of the newsletter:

• Acquisition activities, featuring news from Northshore, CBRE, Asuene , Daikin, and Legence.

• Just a few weeks ago, Siemens’ Brightly unit announced an acquisition of Australian startup Setmetrics. We unpack this deal, highlight the cohort of peers like Setmetrics, and describe how it aligns with our 2024 post about enterprise decarbonization analytics (EDA) solutions.

• We've updated our market map of deconglomeration moves by the big OEMs, adding Siemens and Honeywell to our first version graphic of Trane, Carrier and JCI.

• And all the M+A partnership news that you expect, with news from Verdigris, TMA Systems, Apollo, Daikin, enVerid, Siemens, Delta, Neeve and more.

• We also have a shorter section on public firms, highlighting Siemens Q4 and year-end earnings and CxApp.

• Joe attended Schneider’s Innovation Summit and shares some thoughts below.

Lastly, Joe will be heading out East this week, to New York City for client meetings. Reach out if you’d like to try to meet up.

And don’t forget to check out our podcast! Lewis Martin and Joe Aamidor host the “Down Low with Joe”, which focuses on market developments and includes interviews with RE decarb/digitization innovators. Check out our YouTube channel or Spotify.

A housekeeping item - our project calendar is filling up for Q1 2026 - please reach out if you think you will need our help (and note, we have a new project inquiry page). We’d be happy to talk - please get in touch soon!

Aamidor Consulting Client Spotlight

We’ve been gradually updating our library of case studies (and plans to market them more widely to current and prospective clients). Here’s a sneak peak of what is to come - a recent 2025 project helping a larger OEM.

Of course, all of the OEMs have been investing heavily in their digital strategies. We posted about JCI’s recent digital strategy comments, and also have a cloud-based timeline (which will be updated) and our OEM digital leaderboard (also will be updated regularly). This is in addition to our M+A and partnership trackers (links are below), plus other resources launching soon for paid newsletter subscribers.

Back to case studies….here’s the new format of a recently completed project.

We are investing heavily in our coverage of how leading industry firms are attacking the smart buildings market - with a focus on what this means to startups / innovators, services firms that may compete with or partner with these firms, and other stakeholders (such as investors). We'd love to talk to you about how can help.

This newsletter is a market wrap-up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Before we get into the other sections, did you miss our quick video about a recent talk Joe delivered at the Smart Data for Energy event? If so, you can watch an 8 minute version of the talk here.

Partnerships:

• Verdigris has tapped EnergyHUB 360 to lead its channel partner program, combining advanced energy monitoring with hands-on adoption support to accelerate growth across data centers and commercial facilities.

  • Our take: Verdigris is pushing hard into data centers - surprisingly one of the few smart building vendors with a strong focus in this vertical. And, their strong energy monitoring platform is likely uniquely differentiated from peers in this market. Unlike in traditional commercial buildings, where their technically robust platform may not have had differentiated value to many facility leaders.

  • How we can help: For innovative firms seeking a better understanding of channel partners and overall partnership strategy, we have a wide lens of solution providers and network of users to validate partner strategy.

• TMA Systems has launched a Workday-approved integration that unifies WebTMA and Workday Financials, giving organizations a single, real-time source for labor, cost, and asset data to improve budgeting and operational performance.

  • Our take: TMA is running a fairly traditional PE-backed rollup strategy, which has led them to make a number of acquisitions, software in new geographies and also for different industries. We also see this partnership as a means to sell to larger enterprises who are more dependent on non-facility platforms (financials, HR, customers/CRM, etc).

Read more

We’re back after just 1 week, as we delayed the public firm update due to earnings season. Check out that special issue if you missed it. This mid-month issue is focused on product launches, new fundraising activity, and new investment funds.

Let’s get right to the issue, which includes:

• Funding updates from WorkHero, etalyitics, NxLite, and more.

• Product launches from a large number of firms, including: Encycle, Kode Labs, Trane, Schneider, X (Google’s ‘moonshot’ group), and VergeSense.

• “Our take” for many of these key deals.

• Revisiting our capital efficiency research from the summer, with a new way to look at startup scale. We also provide recommendations to all key stakeholders in the market, include investors who are looking to deploy capital in this market.

Please enjoy, and reach out if you have a question or comments (or, of course, want to talk about how we can help you with product or market strategy).

A housekeeping item - we are starting to book projects into 2026 - please reach out if you think you will need our help. From fractional head of product to commercial due diligence projects for investors, our capabilities are wide within smart buildings product and market strategy.

Aamidor Consulting Client Spotlight

We recently wrapped a project with a Global OEM that was updating its go-forward cloud-based software product strategy. Our client sought external feedback on pricing and packaging trends, a perspective on key investments by its peers, and emerging trends and product categories that should be considered for investment. The product leadership team used our analysis as another point of view to inform its multi-year roadmap.

For firms large and small, our deep market knowledge, wide network of users and buyers, and longstanding product management experience enable us to validate product strategy and provide more confidence to vendors. Reach out if you’d like an external view on your product strategy.

This newsletter is a market wrap up and analysis of the smart buildings industry. If the email was forwarded to you, sign up to receive it directly.

Smart building product launches and related announcements:

• Encycle Technologies launched Swarm Chorus™, a machine learning–driven workflow orchestration tool that streamlined HVAC maintenance operations by integrating fault-to-resolution workflows directly into facility teams’ desktop environments.

  • Our take: There is a lot of innovation these days in small commercial buildings. And, while this isn’t directly applicable to multi-site, that is one key vertical for the firm. It also fits into our general theme about merging CMMS and BAS solutions - though we’re at the early stages of this shift.

• KODE Labs appointed Carl Gill as Chief Information Security Officer, completed its SOC 2 Type II attestation, and launched the KODE Trust Center to strengthen its global security, compliance, and transparency initiatives.

  • Our take: One way or another, all smart buildings firms will continue to invest in cybersecurity, which is moving from differentiator to table stakes.

Read more