Lucid raises $8 Million to Grow BuildingOS and Enable Smart Buildings

Lucid Design Group, Inc. has raised $8.2 million in Series B funding to expand the capabilities of its BuildingOS platform. BuildingOS enables the coming wave of connected devices in commercial buildings by providing the connectivity and analytics to make better decisions and improve performance. Formation 8 Partners led the round, which also included investment from Zetta Venture Partners.

“Commercial buildings are emerging as one of the single largest opportunities to apply information technology over the next few years,” said Jim Kim, Founder and Managing Partner of Formation 8. “We’ve seen a number of companies try to enable intelligent buildings, but Lucid is the first to do so in a way that integrates the needs of owners, occupants, tenants, facility management, and C-level executives in a simple, rapidly deployable solution.”

Founded in 2004 by Dr. John Petersen, Michael Murray, Vladi Shunturov, and Gavin Platt at Oberlin College, Lucid pioneered an intuitive “operating system” for buildings that serves as a central information hub for every system, meter, and device. Today the 40-person Oakland, California-based company is profitable, with nearly 400 customers from tech, finance, healthcare, government, and education.

“Lucid is applying the kind of data analytics solutions we have seen in other domains to make commercial buildings smarter,” said Mark Gorenberg, Founder and Managing Director of Zetta Venture Partners. “It is a complex challenge and a massive opportunity.”

BuildingOS connects with over 150 metering and building systems, including building automation, submeters, lighting and plug load controls, on-site generation, demand response, as well as electric and gas utilities. The platform also provides “instant integration” for supported vendors’ Internet-connected hardware, and real-time analytics.

“Building automation is already a $35 billion global business growing at 55% annually, and yet 94% of commercial buildings don’t have advanced building systems,” said Lucid CEO Vladi Shunturov. “Our product integrates the wide array of systems in those buildings that are already connected, and is enabling rapid deployment of intelligent devices in the rest of the market.”