The Industrial IoT has seen an increasing share of the overall funding going to the Internet of Things category and has attracted investment from the venture arms of blue-chip tech corporates such as GE Ventures, Intel Capital, Cisco Investments, and Qualcomm Ventures.
Startups in the space are attacking incumbents in categories including networking infrastructure, sensor manufacturing, as well as developing big data software-as-a-service to make sense of the deluge of machine data, as we highlighted in our market map of the Industrial IoT.
Using CB Insights data, we examined investments into these Industrial IoT (IIoT) companies targeting enterprise and heavy industry, including deals and funding, beginning in 2012.
Annual financing history
At the current run-rate, deal volume is on track to surpass 2015’s total by 30%. Funding-wise, 2016 should be a robust year for IIoT, and the second year in a row of $1.2B+ in funding, but flat in dollar terms compared to 2015.
Large rounds in the first quarter of 2016 went to IoT software and services company Greenwave Systems ($45M Series C), commercial drone developer Airware ($30M Series C), and connected HVAC and lighting company Enlighted ($25M Series D financing).
Quarterly trends
Looking at a quarterly scale, both deals and dollars retreated in Q2’16, although it was one of just three quarters with 40+ deals. After a significant uptick in Q1’16, when deals peaked at 54, activity fell by 26% quarter-over-quarter. And funding fell from $328M to $325M, which translates to a 9% decline quarter-on-quarter.
Notable deals in Q2’16 went to IoT platform Ayla Networks ($39M Series C), the stealthy commercial 3D printing company Desktop Metal ($34M Series C), and IoT analytics company Maana ($26M Series B).
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