Spotlight: Smart-building company 75F ‘scales up’ with partners

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Today’s climate challenges are too large for any company to solve alone, says Deepinder Singh, founder and CEO of 75F, the Bloomington-based manufacturer of smart building management systems.

That’s one reason why working with — instead of against — potential competitors in the industry is critical, Singh said.

And why a $5 million investment from Next47, the global venture capital unit of German electronics giant Siemens is so exciting for Singh. The Next47 investment, announced in July, completes 75F’s first round of funding at $28 million. Previous investors include Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy, OGCI Climate Investments and WIND Ventures.

The Siemens investment adds to the momentum 75F gained in May when it announced a partnership with Plymouth-based Daikin Applied Americas to design and deploy a new generation of wireless building controls and sensing technologies, Singh said. The cloud-based suite of building management system (BMS) products is designed to work out-of-the-box with equipment from Daikin Applied, a global commercial heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) leader.

‘The iPhone of building intelligence’

The Daikin partnership and Siemens investment represent “a huge amount of validation” for 75F’s approach, which Singh likens to “the iPhone of building intelligence.” 75F’s smart sensors and software, according to the company, leverage the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning to control HVAC systems, lighting and indoor air quality and make commercial buildings “more efficient, comfortable and healthier.”

“These large incumbent companies that we’re working with, who normally people would have thought that they’re 75F’s competitors, I think of them as partners,” Singh said. “They have their strengths and it’s time for them to leverage some of those strengths that another company like 75F might have in terms of our technology stack.”

Siemens’ investment reflects the industry’s shift toward energy-efficient technologies that make savings available to more customers, according to Henning Sandfort, CEO of Building Products at Siemens Smart Infrastructure.

“75F’s wireless solution is easy to install and implement, offers fully integrated AI (artificial intelligence) and analytics and can help get companies large or small on a path to meeting their energy or carbon reduction goals,” Sandfort said in a statement.

Startup to ‘scale up’

Part of the new investment will help take 75F from startup to “scale up,” said Singh, a software engineer who launched the company in 2012 after finding that his daughter’s room was cooler than the rest of the family’s home.

That includes, internally, developing the infrastructure to serve 75F’s large partners well and emphasizing 75F University, to train employees in what the company does and instill its culture, Singh said. Externally, 75F wants to become “the Khan Academy for HVAC controls,” to offer accessible training in intelligent building management and energy-efficient operations.

A big shift for 75F is working with large partners who have distribution networks or sales channels instead of going directly after end consumers, Singh said. That includes Daikin as well as a large utility in Singapore and large energy services companies in the United States.

“What we are doing is trying to become a technology platform provider instead of just a product company,” Singh said.

The Daikin Applied-75F partnership signals their commitment to making smart building automation affordable and easy to deploy,” Mike Hoppe, controls product leader at Daikin Applied, said.

“75F’s wireless cloud-based technology is an important addition to our portfolio, because it allows us to support even more building applications and connect equipment from other manufacturers,” Hoppe said in a statement.

‘Aggressive return on investment’

75F is targeting commercial buildings that are 10,000 to 200,000 square feet, Singh said, 92% of which in the United States don’t have building management systems. The company’s system more efficient, easier to install and offers “a more aggressive return on investment,” Singh said. “Because it’s smarter.”

“For this key segment we are providing a technology which is far more accessible, something that truly serves their needs at a cost point that they’ve never had before and with an energy efficiency which is likely far higher than any other BMS in the world at this point.”

For the types of building management equipment that 75F controls, “we have the smartest algorithms that will run the building in the most optimized manner which is physically possible,” Singh said. 75F is partnering with Siemens and others to serve larger buildings up to 1 million square feet.

75F introduced “Epidemic Mode” last year as a free upgrade that building owners and managers could activate to “keep their buildings running healthier,” Singh said. “We had some private schools that kept in-person classes even during the peak of the pandemic and they were able to do this successfully without transmitting the virus among students and staff.”

New segment expected to spur growth

75F expects to triple its revenue this year, though Singh declined to specify a projected total. “The sky’s the limit” on the company’s growth potential as it creates a new technology segment and makes IoT BMS technology available to a large number of buildings that have not had access to it.

A large revenue jump expected last year did not materialize because of the pandemic. Forty of its 130 global employees work in Minnesota.

Steve Case, AOL co-founder and CEO of Revolution, the venture firm behind the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, an early 75F investor that invests in companies outside of Silicon Valley, said partnerships are the way forward.

“We have entered the Third Wave of the internet, where it is no longer the Internet of Things, it is the Internet of everything,” Case said in a statement. “Companies like 75F are so compelling because they are building on that trend with a focus on what I call the three P’s: Partnership, Policy, and Perseverance.”

Singh’s vision is for 75F to help “usher in that paradigm of intelligent buildings that are self-running,” he said. “I think it’s going to be necessary. Otherwise, I don’t think we’ll be ready for the fourth wave. We’ll be all wiped out.”

75F

Business: Smart building management systems company makes smart sensors and software to control heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, lighting and indoor air quality systems for commercial buildings.

Headquarters: Bloomington

CEO: Deepinder Singh

Employees: 130, 40 in Minnesota

Founded: 2012

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