As the “Internet of Things” gains momentum, expecting to be fueled and enabled by big data analytics, investors and companies are seeking to expand their holdings across these areas.
Kylie Wansink, senior analyst for global markets at analyst firm BuddeCom, said in a research note that in the coming year, the global telecoms sector “will see continued focus on the underlying trends of [machine-to-machine], big data analytics, cloud computing and the over-arching Internet of Things” as guiding forces in the industry.
Funding to IoT startups in general is on track to have its biggest year on-record, according to CB Insights. Funding to IoT-related startups has more than doubled in the past six years, the company reported, to more than $1.9 billion in 2014. While last year was a record-breaker, IoT-related funding for the full-year of 2015 is on track to surpass that dollar figure slightly, CB Insights projected – although there are fewer deals over all.
According to the company, mid-stage funding deals have accounted for the greatest share of funding in every year except 2010, and through the third quarter of 2015, mid-stage funding comprised 52% of IoT-related investment funding. However, late-stage funding series “D” and “E” or more accounted for 22% of dollars in 2014 and 31% this year.
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Notable IoT big data analytics acquisitions in 2015 are spread across multiple verticals, which is in line with the expectation that IoT is part of mobile and wireless technologies becoming more central to a wide variety of industries – or as Joe McKendrink wrote in Forbes, “the lines between between industries as well as non-tech and tech companies continue to get blurrier and blurrier.”
EY noted in its most recent look at global merger and acquisition activity that “growth in deals targeting big data analytics, the Internet of Things and payment and financial services technologies made the biggest contributions to value” during the third quarter of 2015.
Some of the notable IoT big data analytics deals this year include:
- Cisco adding half a dozen big data, analytics and IoT companies to its Entrepreneurs in Residence program at the beginning of the year – and by October, buying one of them, privately held ParStream. ParStream specializes in edge-computing and analytics for IoT applications.
- In the industrial IoT world, manufacturing software company PTC spent $105 million to acquire ColdLight, which focuses on machine learning and predictive analysis based on embedded sensors in medical, industrial and consumer products. Fortune reported this was PTC’s third major acquisition of the year.
- Honeywell’s $5.1 billion acquisition of Elster, which is expected to close this week. Elster provides thermal gas and residential heating solutions as well as gas, water and electricity meters, smart meters, software and data analytics to support those systems.