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Johnson Controls has announced plans to sell its Air Distribution Technologies business, which it acquired in 2014 for $1.6 billion, for an undisclosed amount to Los Angeles private equity firm Truelink Capital. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2024 and marks another step in a broad transformation of the pure-play smart building major. “The pending sale is the next step as we continue to simplify our portfolio and advance our transformation into a comprehensive solutions provider for commercial buildings,” said JCI chairman and CEO, George Oliver, last week. “This transaction is consistent with our strategy to focus our resources on our most attractive opportunities for value creation”. Johnson Controls Air Distribution & HVAC Business Headquartered in Ireland, Johnson Controls is a well-established smart buildings player, serving a wide range of customers in more than 150 countries. Following acquisitions of York, Air Distribution Technologies, Tyco, and others, JCI holds a significant […]

In smart buildings, like all tech industries, most startups set out hoping to be the game-changing company that puts a “dent in the universe” but the reality is that few even get close. Despite all the hype around so many startups, the odds of “success” if you are funded by a top venture capital (VC) investor are something like 0.05%, and even “success” doesn’t mean you change the game or disrupt the market. “Many startups claim to be disrupting the market in one way or another. But how true is that?” highlights our new research study. “With $37 billion of capital invested in smart building startups since 2015, should we expect the industry to have been disrupted? With that massive amount of capital brought to bear over the last ten years, can we point to a startup that is now poised to disrupt the operation and maintenance phases of commercial buildings?” As our startup study […]

In this Research Note, we examine the CXApp workplace experience business and 2023 financials, following the SPAC merger with KINS Technology in 2022 and subsequent events. Founded in 2015, CXApp is a workplace experience platform for enterprise customers in a work ‘from-anywhere’ world for employees, partners, customers, and visitors. Functionalities offered include employee engagement, desk and meeting room reservations, workplace analytics, occupancy management, content delivery, corporate communications and notifications, event management, live indoor mapping, wayfinding, and navigation. SPAC Business Combination In May 2021, Inpixon, a US Nasdaq-listed firm, acquired the outstanding capital stock of CXApp. However, in September 2022, the company announced it would spin out the business in a SPAC transaction valued at $69 million. In March 2023, KINS Technology Group Inc (NASDAQ: KINZ), a special purpose acquisition corporation sponsored by KINS Capital LLC, announced the successful completion of its previously announced business combination with CXApp Holding Corp. Memoori analyzed this move in our […]

This Research Note examines what’s behind Witco’s latest move to acquire SharingCloud. We review the deal in the context of the startup’s development, funding, prior acquisitions, and strategy. Witco Profile Witco, a Parisian startup was founded in 2016 as MonBuilding, serving the French and Canadian enterprise market for workplace engagement apps. After raising 2 million euros in seed funding in 2019, the company changed its name to Witco in September 2021 when it closed a Series A 12 million euro round and announced the launch of its smart building app in the UK. The funding was backed by new investors, Daphni, Eurazeo, UL Invest, and business angels, joining Naxicap Partners who also invested in earlier funding rounds. The new capital was intended to support their global expansion in the USA, UK, Germany, and Spain. Their approach has mainly been focused on building a workplace app towards a seamless employee experience – with 50 modules and […]