Since its founding in 2015, the Zurich-based company has built up a corporate clientele that includes some of the world’s leading businesses, including one of the largest US pharmaceutical companies, EY, Biogen International, Zurich Insurance, and Swiss Re. With its software deployed across corporate real estate on six continents, Locatee plans to use this funding round to become the Google Analytics for office buildings.

Locatee is a pioneer in extracting office occupancy data from device connectivity to LAN and WiFi networks. More recently, it has also developed an integration to collect data from motion sensors, making it data agnostic.

“The compatibility with different measurement sources is what sets Locatee apart from the heavily saturated sensor market,” said Thomas Kessler, CEO and Co-founder of Locatee. “In many buildings, the data is already there, in the organisation’s existing IT infrastructure, or captured by motion sensors. We’re bringing all those different points of information together in a single source of truth.”

“Due to the global COVID-19 crisis, the utilisation rate of office buildings in many countries has gone from 50% down to zero. Underutilised office spaces are bad for business even in the best of times, but in this current difficult economic climate, under-utilisation of any asset - especially something as cost-intensive as office space - could spell doom for many businesses. Locatee empowers organisations to think about how to use their office spaces more efficiently and effectively and so is well positioned to help organisations transition to new ways of working now as well as to plan for how this pandemic will impact the way organisations use physical space for collaboration for years to come,” Kessler continued.

The funding, secured from San Francisco based FYRFLY Venture Partners and Zurich-based Tomahawk VC, will allow Locatee to accelerate growth, especially in the United States, and become a global leader in the smart building market. The company aims to grow strategically, placing a high priority on bringing the right talent and expertise onboard.

“Locatee’s vision to transform how space is used will ultimately elevate the quality of life for employees and can also contribute significantly to sustainable development goals. Office space is only one component and increasingly all ‘work points’ matter for productivity optimisation. A quantitative approach to space optimisation and productivity holds both significant top- and bottom- line potential for large global organisations.  Furthermore, aggregated data can help predict larger market trends, which is exciting to us,” said Philipp Stauffer, Co-founder and Managing Director at FYRFLY Venture Partners.

“We’re excited to join the Locatee team on its mission to provide real estate owners and operators with data they didn’t previously have access to. In today’s dynamic global market, having access to real time data is crucial to making the right decision at the right time. We strongly believe that the future of work will be more data driven and Locatee provides a central set of data,” concluded Cédric Waldburger, Founder at Tomahawk.VC.