Density’s $1 Billion Valuation Signals New Era Of Maturity For Smart Workplace Software Market

Density’s $1 Billion Valuation Signals New Era Of Maturity For Smart Workplace Software Market

On November 10th, 2021, Density, a workplace performance analytics firm, announced that it had raised $125 million in a Series D round of funding, taking its total raised to $225 million. Density has achieved more than 500% growth since March 2020, with customers across 32 countries, spanning around 1.25 billion square feet. Density will use the funding to double its staff, boost R&D and support an expanding customer base. Density also announced that it had acquired HELIXRE, which creates digital twins of a built space to enable space planning and interior design initiatives. Density is now valued at $1.05 billion, arguably the highest valuation in the smart workplace software industry to date.

Density’s valuation reflects that it is targeting a large market that is undergoing rapid change. It provides its utilization sensors in a hardware-as-a-service model to offices, retail stores, hospitality venues, education institutions and places of worship, helping them optimize how their facilities are used. Density’s image-based sensors can also support hot-desking where occupants need to know real-time availability to reserve space. Beyond this, customers can leverage Density to collect data on indoor occupant preferences for different space types to iterate interior layout designs. Density’s monitoring of workplace usage trends can enable portfolio rightsizing, such as releasing chronically underutilized space or identifying the need for more space. It can also count the total number of occupants in a building, preventing capacity being reached and thereby preventing fire safety as well as health code violations.

Whilst image-based sensor monitoring is all the rage right now (witness VergeSense raising $60 million), it is important to note the different opportunities alternative data sources offer. These can include wired network monitoring, Wi-Fi analytics, badge swipe data and static reservation data. For simple but common use cases such as estimating total building occupancy levels, these sources deliver approximate but satisfactory estimates. The advantage of using sensors is the granularity and accuracy they offer, such as utilization insights to the desk level or the behaviour of people in a space.

Density’s massive valuation is reflective of a shift in the maturity of the market. In our 2020 tech roadmap, we predicted that image recognition sensors would reach the growth phase quickly as the pandemic spurred demand for granular workplace insights. This new round of funding will help Density further push up user adoption, due to a healthy business case for the product and the wide variety of scenarios in which it can deliver good value. This maturing process is seen in other areas of the market, such as digitized access control. Witness Brivo announcing plans to go public via a SPAC at a $808 million valuation. As hybrid working becomes more entrenched, and corporates look to digitize operations to make them more adaptable, the market for workplace management tools will continue to mature.

To find out more about Verdantix analysis on this and other dynamic market trends for the coming year, sign up to our upcoming webinar, taking place on December 08 2021: Predictions, Risks And Opportunities: What Should Smart Building Vendors Watch Out For In 2022?