Allegion Ventures President Sees Potential for IoT in State
Indianapolis-based Allegion Ventures, the venture capital arm of Allegion plc, has added more innovative companies to its investment portfolio: Boston-based HqO, Robin Powered Inc. and Pindrop. In a segment for Inside Indiana Business, Allegion Ventures President Rob Martens tells Gerry Dick about how new additions and tech trends are creating opportunities in Indiana.
“We see an incredible amount of innovation in this IoT space. Lots of digital and physical convergence, which creates tons of opportunities in the market,” says Martens.
The global security company is expanding its reach by investing in the three firms from a $50 million venture fund founded by its chief executive officer. The goal of the fund was to seek out innovative companies who also saw value in digital technology and Internet of Things.
Martens says he thinks Indiana is perfectly positioned to take advantage of IoT.
"I think the ‘Internet of Things’ or sometimes you might even hear ‘industrial IoT’ is right in the sweet spot for a state like Indiana. We have people who really understand how to build physical things and we build them well. When we see things really start to merge software, digital technology and hard tech sometimes the water gets a little frothy but with the help of companies and partners, people like High Alpha that are introducing software into the community entities like Techpoint, we start to see a convergence of people who understand not only the app side of software but the brains, the firmware, the embedded software that allows those two things, the app and the hardware, to work together seamlessly."