Symphony invests $12 mn in property tech startup Smarten Spaces

Smarten Spaces, a Singapore-based startup that provides artificial intelligence- driven solutions for real estate management, has raised  $12 million in a series A funding

round from investment company Symphony International Holdings Limited.

The company uses AI and software-as-a-service solutions to modernise  spaces for enterprises, commercial real estate, co-working, co-living and warehousing. It claims to have rapidly acquired customers in Singapore and India since its inception in 2017.

Smarten expects to use the capital to fuel its expansion in Asia Pacific and North America. 

Its founding team consists of former President of Cisco Systems’ India and SAARC businesses Dinesh Malkani, another former Cisco executive Anushka Verghese and Prithvi Shergill who was previously an HCL Technologies executive. 

“This is our first investment in a SaaS company and we are looking forward to working with Dinesh and his team to grow the business,” Anil Thadani, chairman at the London Stock Exchange-listed Symphony said.

The global smart space market size is expected to grow from $8.5 billion in 2019 to $19.9 billion by 2024, at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 18.5% during the forecast period, according to a research report by MarketsandMarkets.

Rapid development across Internet of Things technologies, resources-optimised buildings and growing environmental concerns  are fuelling the need for smart spaces across the world.

The sector’s major solution providers include the likes of IBM, Cisco, Hitachi Vantara, Iconics, and Adappt in the United States, ABB in Switzerland, Siemens in Germany, Huawei in China, Schneider Electric in France, Smartspace Software and Ubisense in the United Kingdom, Coor in Sweden, Smarten Spaces, and Eutech Cybernetic in Singapore, and Spacewell in Belgium, the report added.