Amsterdam-based Lone Rooftop has just announced that the Dutch proptech platform has received an investment of €2.2 million from venture capitalist Nimbus Ventures. With the capital injection, the startup is set to expand into U.S. and global markets and the investment will directly fund Lone Rooftop’s ambitious growth strategy to become the leading space utilisation platform.
Further, the latest funding will also support the company’s massive scaleup over the next two years — with employee numbers expected to jump from 20 to over 100.
Lone Rooftop: The PIE platform
Since its inception in 2014 by Marcel Lamers (CEO), Jeroen Coumans (CPO) and Reinoud Elhorst (CTO), Lone Rooftop has been helping large enterprises tackle inefficiency and optimise space utilisation by up to 20-percent while saving organisations millions.
Their real-time occupancy platform, PIE, which connects to building’s existing Wi-Fi network and is based on the Wi-Fi signals, anonymously calculates the position and amount of people indoors. Data sources such as sensors, entrance gates, or Bluetooth beacons can be integrated into Pie to enrich the data. Further, the intelligent platform also delivers its data to a growing number of applications so it can constantly provide the best means to optimise a building in terms of hospitality, efficiency and sustainability.
Alongside space optimisation, this data is also being used to help employees find an available workspace or conference room as well as achieve energy savings by making lighting and climate systems smarter.
U.S. Expansion
After gaining a strong footing in the Dutch and Western European market, Lone Rooftop sees the United States as the next natural frontier for their smart building software technology. “The increasing demand for our product from the U.S. as well as the sheer size of the North American real estate portfolios are clear drivers for the decision to establish ourselves here,” Lone Rooftop founder and CEO, Marcel Lamers, explained.
With funding secured, Lone Rooftop will open their first U.S. operation on the East Coast with the support of expanded product development and sales operation teams. “With this investment, we can realise our dream of global expansion and strengthen the role of our platform within the international global corporate real estate market,” Lamers went on to say.
Global Opportunity
Alongside blue-chip customers such as ABN AMRO Bank, Philips and Royal HaskoningDHV in the Netherlands — the Smart Building SaaS Specialist is working with a growing number of international corporations who benefit from the rollout of Lone Rooftop technology across their global offices. The new capital will further fund this global support and expansion.
“Because our solution is characterised as a software implementation, we are very scalable, which means the growth potential is tremendous,” admitted Lamers. “The smart building IoT market in the Netherlands is highly innovative and far ahead of other countries. We’re looking forward to bringing this technology to global corporations — as no matter where you are in the world, or how big your company is, real estate costs represent one of the largest expenses.”
Nimbus Ventures’ Support for Growth
Nimbus Ventures is an independent venture capital fund for growth capital investments with a focus on innovative and scalable technologies. The Netherlands-based fund takes a hands-on approach to their investments, providing both strategic and tactical support that spans positioning, administration, optimisation and strategic partnership guidance as the company scales.
This is the fifth investment for the relatively young investment fund, Lone Rooftop joining the ranks of Easee (online eye measurements), Reailisation (inventory optimisation software for retail), Agrocares (agri-tech) and Boomerweb (a SaaS E-health solution). Now, Lone Rooftop looks forward to the same support demonstrated by Nimbus with the other companies in their portfolio.
Nimbus Ventures Partner, Auke van den Hout: “Next to the scalability of Lone Rooftop’s product, we like the enormous potential in the smart building market. We look forward to working together on the international success of this company.”
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