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Tech startup Facilio has raised US$6.4 million in Series A funding from international venture capitalists Tiger Global Management and existing investor Accel.
Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia and with offices in Chennai, India, the company provides management software that uses the internet of things (IoT) and machine learning to manage buildings operations.
Founded in 2017 by cloud and IoT veterans Krishnamoorthi Rangasamy, Prabhu Ramachandran, Rajavel Subramanian, Yogendra Babu, the company has just taken off the ground.
Founder and CEO Prabhu Ramachandran said the early stage funding, the first for the startup, will be used to pursue expansion and consolidation plans aggressively as well as to invest in R&D for product innovation.
Facilio offers real-time facilities management to commercial real estate (CRE) owners using IoT and artificial intelligence.
“Buildings today need agility to adapt to a rapidly transforming landscape. Legacy systems, high upfront costs, and long implementation cycles of traditional FM software vendors are bogging down clients with their inflexibility. There is a definitive shift towards embracing an IoT and AI led software system,” Ramachandran explained.
IoT and AI in commercial real estate
In a company blog post, Ramachandran explained what he calls a “tech-driven approach to facilities management.”
“To put things into context – over 80 percent of the building life-cycle cost is spent on operations, repair, and recapitalization, which means between 5 to 6.5 times more money is spent on operational costs than on construction costs,” he said.
This is because “buildings are still burdened with decades of complex automation and legacy systems.” So in Facilio’s vision, three things must come together in real-time — people, sustainability, and machines.
Facilio’s software suite is now managing more than 20 million sq.ft of space across over 150 commercial buildings globally.
A US$7-billion market by 2022
Citing research from consultancy Verdantix, Facilio said the global real estate and building management software market is poised to grow to more than US$7 billion by 2022.
Meanwhile, research agency TechSci predicts the UAE facility management market to reach a value of US$17 billion by 2021.
Lee Fixel, partner, Tiger Global, said the company believes Facilio is well positioned to lead this transformation.
“Bringing data-driven efficiencies to building operations and enabling a superior occupant experience is the future of commercial real estate,” Fixel said.
