PropTech · sub-niche
Smart building IoT platforms.
IoT + AI for commercial buildings — HVAC, lighting, security, energy.
Team-sized buildTrickle — one deal per quarter
Why now
Energy + ESG pressure makes smart-building tech a budget line. Most building-management systems are 90s-vintage.
What the signal looks like
Repos with BACnet / Modbus adapters, AI-control libraries, and building-management integrations.
Public examples
We name publicprojects + categories only — never founders we track inside the paid product. The buyer’s edge stays inside the product.
- 75F shape
- Switch Automation
- Open-source building-IoT libraries
What this displaces
A BMS from 2003 + a manually adjusted thermostat.
Our build-vs-invest call
Capital + hardware-heavy. Fund only with building-industry background. The moat is the integration breadth + the AI savings.
Common questions about this niche
- Buyer?
- Commercial property owners + property managers.
- Pricing?
- Per square foot per year.
- Defensibility?
- Integration + AI accuracy.
More inside PropTech
- Short-term rental ops — Operations + revenue management + cleaning + maintenance for STR portfolios.
- Mortgage underwriting LLMs — AI-driven document analysis + underwriting for non-QM + alternative mortgages.
- Property management for mom-and-pops — PMS for 1-50-unit landlords — the long tail underserved by Yardi / RealPage.
- Commercial lease abstraction — AI-extracted lease data + portfolio analytics for owners + tenants.