With a population of 2.8 million people, Denver, CO, is quickly emerging as a vibrant U.S. technology center. Anchored by the prestigious University of Colorado, the Denver metro area offers a rich ecosystem to support innovation and entrepreneurship. In the last 18 months, 94 startups have raised an impressive $1.5 billion in venture capital investment.
One segment that is attracting significant investment interest is the Internet of Things (IoT), a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, and objects that are provided with unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over networks without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. Consulting firm McKinsey estimated the 2015 IoT market in the U.S. at $900 million and forecast growth to $3.7 billion by 2020.
According to CrunchBase, there are currently nine venture-backed IoT startups in Denver. Newscenter.io highlights three of them below that we feel are poised for rapid growth.
Notion
Credit: getnotion.com
Notion, which has created an all-in-one sensor for simplified home awareness, was cofounded in 2012 by Ryan Margoles and Brett Jurgens. CEO Jurgens previously worked as a private placement analyst at investment banking company Piper Jaffray and later held a position as VP of operations and business development at the Denver-based startup UrgentRx.
Notion is building on the smart home trend. The company’s single sensor can detect doors and windows opening, water leaks, smoke alarms sounding, lights being left on, temperature of rooms, access to gun safes or liquor cabinets, and even the amount of fuel remaining in a propane tank. Notion’s device, which is the size of a couple of poker chips piled on top of each other, can be easily installed by users and has a two-year battery life.
The Techstar company has raised $15.7 million funding to date, with an impressive $10 million Series A closed in June, 2017. Notion’s investors include Draper Nexus, XL Innovate, and Mesh Ventures.
MachineShop
Credit: machineshop.io
Founded in 2012 by Michael Campbell, MachineShop is an enterprise software company focused on simplifying the way organizations integrate and act upon operational data and the systems that generate it. The company was named a “Cool Vendor” in the IoT sector by Gartner, Inc., the research company that identifies short lists of vendors that stand out in emerging and mature technology markets. In 2016, MachineShop was also recognized as one of the three innovators in the IoT platforms market by International Data Corporation (IDC).
MachineShop raised $3 million seed financing in 2014 from CSR, Diebold, and Xchanging. In April, 2017, the company joined the Linux Foundation’s EdgeX Foundry as a founding member. The EdgeX Foundry is an open source project that aims to build a common, open framework for (IoT) edge computing.
2lemetry
Kyle Roche, Founder of 2lemetry | Credit: Kyle Roche LinkedIn
2lemetry, founded in 2011 by Kyle Roche, is an IoT platform that powers the connected enterprise by tying people, processes, data and devices together, and transforming raw data into real-time actionable intelligence. The company’s core technology, ThingFabric Platform, acts as an IoT version of enterprise application integration (EAI) middleware solutions, providing device connectivity at scale, cross-communication, data brokering, and storage. 2lemetry also helps companies make sense of captured data by offering actionable data intelligence through predictive computational models and a configurable rules engine.
The company has raised $10 million in venture capital funding from Salesforce Ventures. In 2015, it was quietly scooped up by an industry conglomerate to build out an enterprise IoT platform that lets connected devices easily and securely interact with cloud applications and other devices. 2lemetry is the first Denver-based IoT startup that reached a successful exit, setting a nice precedent for the region’s growing population of companies in this fast-growing space.