JLL announced it has acquired Sacramento-based Hank, a virtual engineering platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that autonomously optimizes the management systems of commercial buildings, the former said in a release.
JLL noted that Hank’s system applies machine learning and AI to solve many of the commercial real estate (CRE) industry’s largest operational challenges, including HVAC programming inconsistencies and energy and equipment performance inefficiencies. Its cloud-based platform optimizes energy efficiency, air quality, maintenance costs and tenant comfort?ultimately delivering increased net operating income (NOI) to real estate investors, according to JLL.
“Our vision for the future of buildings is automated, AI-powered, smart and sustainable,” said Sharad Rastogi, president at JLL Technologies (JLLT), a division of JLL. “By joining JLL, Hank’s cutting-edge technology presents a major opportunity to drive efficiencies for our clients today and best anticipate the needs of tomorrow. JLL’s acquisition of Hank represents a continued commitment to drive sustainability and embrace technology to shape the future of real estate for a better world.”
“Having worn many hats in the building management space, we uniquely understand the opportunity to drive impact through smart building technology,” said Zachary Denning, CEO of Hank. “We are thrilled to be part of JLL, which has a strong track record of applying technology, like Hank, to solve real estate’s most complex challenges. With JLL, we will have the resources to scale faster to advance healthy, sustainable buildings worldwide.”
Hank works by plugging into an existing building automation system (BAS) and developing a “digital twin” of the building in the cloud to start learning how it operates. Hank is able to generate a full systems audit of the building, detail where it can make efficiency adjustments, and action against it automatically, autonomously and remotely. JLL also said that Hank can be deployed in a matter of weeks and drive immediate value that spans energy savings, asset longevity, comfort scores and indoor air quality (IAQ).
Following the acquisition, Hank will operate within JLLT and will continue to serve existing customers, and its AI-powered technology will now be available to JLL clients.
Last month, JLL announced that it had closed on its acquisition of Boston-based Building Engines, a building operations platform. JLL acquired Building Engines for a cash purchase price of approximately $300 million.
Building Engines? cloud platform serves as a system that ?unites all the technology and applications? used to run buildings in one place, simplifying interactions between building tenants, management and staff, according to JLL.
JLL also intends to leverage Building Engines? open API infrastructure to integrate the platform more broadly with the greater real estate ecosystem, including the product portfolio developed by JLL Technologies (JLLT), its division that builds and invests in technology, and products it invests in through venture arm JLL Spark.
JLL is a professional services firm that specializes in real estate and investment management, with operations in 80 countries and a global workforce of more than 95,000 as of September 30, 2021.
