Every Tuesday, we send out "the single best resource on technology for buildings", Nexus' Founder Note. Each issue is an essay written by the Nexus Labs Founder, James Dice, along with a podcast, an event list, and more.
Today’s newsletter is a collaboration between Nexus Labs and our newest creator, Drew DePriest, Senior Director of Digital Facilities Management at CBRE. Drew and I are among the select few invited to speak at most smart buildings conferences.
Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.
"You can't just sell the data. It's got enormous value, but it needs to be manifested and taught in such a way that people can react to it." Episode 140 is a conversation with Bayron Lopez Pineda, Director of OT Operational Technology at Kilroy Realty and Mike Moran, Chief Markets Officer and Chief Risk & Sustainability Officer at MicroShare. We talked about Killroy Realty's Smart Buildings Program and got into the weeds on how they're thinking about occupancy data and leak detection, which are two topics we've discussed on the podcast, but not in detail.
Episode 139 is a conversation with Joe Aamidor of Aamidor Consulting and Jeanne Casey of Nuveen. If you add me in, you get J³. This is the fourth installment of our M&A Roundup series, recorded in February 2023 all about what's happening in the marketplace right now. We unpacked the most interesting recent mergers and acquisitions in the smart buildings industry and dove into why, our reaction to them, and other trends they’re related to.
Today, I want to tell you a quick story about my career.This will help explain the changes I made 6 years ago that I credit for helping me make an impact in smart buildings industry—changes that might help others trying to find their feet as the industry blazes forward.
Episode 138 is a special episode with Nexus Labs' new COO, Rosy Khalife. We introduce you to Rosy who, for the first time on the podcast, turns the tables on me and interviews me. We talk about my background before starting Nexus Labs, the founding story of the company, and the future. If you're looking for some background on Nexus Labs, this is definitely a good place to start.
Today’s newsletter is part 3 in our series about the humans we wrap around the tech stack to form the smart buildings ecosystem: Voices of the buy personas. We have this saying in our industry: “every building is a snowflake.” Do you say it? It’s true… but we shouldn’t let that be an excuse for inaction or resisting change.
Today’s newsletter is part 2 in a series about the humans we wrap around the tech stack to form the smart buildings ecosystem. Here’s a summary of the series: Part 1: The two sides of the ecosystem: buyers and sellers—where do you fit? (last week) Part 2: The humans of smart buildings: our "buyer" personas (today)
Episode 136 is a conversation with Cindy Zhu, Director of Grid Services at Prescriptive Data. We primarily cover grid-interactive efficient buildings, or GEB, my second least favorite acronym in our industry (behind SPOG of course).
Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.
Buildings (and the industry supporting them) are transformed by humans and organizations of humans. Today’s newsletter kicks off a series about the humans we wrap around the tech stack to form the smart buildings ecosystem. Here’s where we’re headed:
Episode 135 is a conversation with Cliff Majersik, Senior Advisor at the Institute for Market Transformation, a nonprofit that’s focused on regulatory and nonregulatory ways to push the economy toward decarbonization.
Last fall, we launched the Nexus Labs Syndicate and started off with an investment in Xeal. Today, I’m excited to announce our second investment in WattCarbon!WattCarbon, led by Nexus Pro member McGee Young, allows energy consumers to offset their energy use on a time and locational basis from renewable energy projects, demand response dispatch, and electrification projects sourced from their own communities, turning local buildings into decarbonization assets.Our investment was part of WattCarbon’s $4.5 million seed round led by True Ventures, with participation from Village Global, Jetstream, Not Boring Capital, Keiki Capital, Greensoil PropTech Ventures, and others.
Episode 134 is a conversation with Comly Wilson, CMO at Enertiv. I enjoyed this one because I believe in a lot of what Comly was saying about workflows being the key to decarbonizing buildings. And not just decarbonization, really implementing any new technology or changing the way things are done in any way requires you to start with the way people work currently and meet them where they’re at.
Our latest white paper summarizes the five vital roles that every smart building program needs on the team. We talk a lot about the flashy new technology required for smart buildings. But we must always remember that when we're changing how things are done, it's people that make it happen.
Episode 133 is a conversation and history lesson with Leroy Walden, a veteran of the building automation system integrator ecosystem in Atlanta, Georgia. We unpacked how the building automation supply chain functions, including the roles of the manufacturers, distributors, and integrators responsible for controlling HVAC systems in major metropolitan areas. And of course, we talked about the downsides and opportunities of that status quo when it comes to implementing smart building technologies. And as we’ve talked about in the past HVAC controls are one silo in the building that operates similarly to the other silos, so the insights in this conversation are applicable to access control, lighting, electrical products, etc.
Episode 132 is a conversation with Tristam Coffin, Co-Founder of Effecterra. We started, as usual with Tristam’s background which includes heavy experience in the grocery vertical. But our main focus here is on sustainable refrigerants. We’ve spent a long time covering how the buildings industry needs to decarbonize by electrifying heating systems using heat pumps, but we and the industry as a whole have overlooked the elephant in the room: the GWP of refrigerants themselves and how they contribute to climate change and every organization’s progress toward net zero. Or, as Tristam said, refrigerants are like Cinderella: they haven’t been invited to the decarbonization ball.
I'm back after taking a few weeks off for R&R and some exploration off of my normal beaten path. I can't think about smart buildings 24/7/365, can I? Before we talk about smart buildings, I have some carveouts to share from my explorations:
Episode 131 is a conversation with Kathy Farrington, Digital Buildings Lead at Google. This is the 4th episode in our Google series, which unpacks different facets of their global smart buildings program and dates back to 2020. This one with Kathy is probably where we should have started because as she shares, she was involved from the beginning when it was just a side project she focused on with her 20% time.
The Network Layer is a vital part of a smart building's infrastructure. It is: ...a dedicated layer with its own hardware, software, standard operating procedures, and key stakeholders who take responsibility for doing it right. It should be converged, monitored, maintained, and have redundancy.
"For us, it's simpler to work with applications that go on top of the BOS because we can control the information being accessed. Without the BOS, transparency is limited, which limits the number of use cases.By adding this data layer, we're dramatically increasing transparency and the possibilities of what else can easily be added on top."
As we celebrate the holidays and start to wind down the year, I'm reflecting on the progress in our industry in 2022. One definite area of progress is defining the specialist roles needed to make smart buildings successful. In this series, we're summarizing five vital roles that every smart building program needs on the team.
“The tools that have always been successful at instigating change are benchmarking and performance standards. Let's use those tools and evolve them to better fit the needs of today's definition of a high-performance building, which includes the carbon aspect, grid interactivity, and occupant responsiveness."
One definite area of progress is defining the specialist roles needed to make smart buildings successful. In this series, we're summarizing five vital roles that every smart building program needs on the team. We talk a lot about the flashy new technology required for smart buildings. But we must always remember that when we're changing how things are done, it's people that make it happen. Here are the five roles we're going to cover:
“The grid is starting to look a lot like the internet. These IOT devices are distributed, digital, user owned and operated nodes. They can buy from the grid, they can sell from the grid, they can respond dynamically.
We talk a lot about the flashy new technology required for smart buildings. But we must always remember that when we're changing how things are done, it's people that make it happen. Here are the five roles we're going to cover: The Smart Building Champion The Design Consultant The Master Systems IntegratorThe Network ManagerThe Commissioning Agent
The word “decarbonization” was everywhere. The green building community is undergoing two shifts: (1) from valuing energy efficiency to valuing the amount of carbon emitted and (2) from valuing “green” materials to valuing the amount of carbon emitted to get them in the building. The decarbonization push is underway beyond that conference… It's industry wide. Let’s focus on the first shift today: What does it mean to shift from energy to carbon?
“There is another use case for smart building systems and for BAS, and it is critical input data for designing low-carbon systems for your building that if you don't have that data, you are not going to design your systems properly. They will probably be oversized and a lot more expensive than they need to be compared to as if you had good data to design on."
It's been a month since we launched the Nexus Labs Syndicate and I'm excited to announce our first investment!Xeal provides hardware and software to real estate owners looking to provide EV charging as an amenity for their tenants. We're honored to join Keyframe Capital, ArcTern Ventures, Moderne Ventures, and others in Xeal's $40M Series B round.
“A building can only run as efficiently as its engineer knows how to run it. Unless you have an engineer-first mindset, none of your energy efficiency efforts is ever really going to reap the rewards."
A big shift is happening in financing for decarbonization projects in the United States. In my private conversations with real estate sustainability and ESG leaders, I've learned this is one of the top things on their minds.
“We can have all the technology in the world but dropping it into a building doesn't magically transform it. It ultimately is a tool. Your people can be empowered by this tool but it will never do everything for you. You have to set objectives, lean in and embrace the technology. You have to train your people and build the organization in a structure that supports it."
So I decided to seek out some expert guidance from outside the core Nexus audience—what might people be missing by dismissing M&A as a transformational force? Enter: Proptech Bankers. They believe consolidation is inevitable; it will play a key role in fixing the current technology fragmentation in the smart building market; and any landlord or proptech company not currently in consolidation conversations is missing an important opportunity to control their destiny.Their answer as to why M&A will be key in fixing fragmentation is at the link below, along with feedback on what's happening around M&A in the current market and what startups should expect in the near and distant future.Why M&A will be key in fixing fragmentation
“There's definitely still venture capital money out there looking for great companies, especially in the smart building space. As long as you have a clear thesis and value proposition and your tech addresses a need of a building owner/operator, you're going to pass this deeper diligence with flying colors."
"Real estate owners buy and sell assets and drive yield. So we needed to reframe little "e", the discussion on electrons, and expand into big "E", environmental social governance. Doing so helped the real estate owner understand not commodities, but yield and risk in return."
“Step one (of 3) on reducing embodied carbon emissions is to start thinking about if we have to build a building at all. So if we just stopped building right now, there's plenty of empty space for us to put all that square footage into that we say we need. And beyond that, we have more than we need."
Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss.These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.Enjoy.
Disclosure: Nexus Labs Syndicate is an investor in WattCarbon. “They're doing the same thing they did last year, but now it's called decarbonization. But the reality is, is that they are decarbonizing buildings. The work that we've been doing for 20 years is the right work to be doing we just don't have a metric to measure ourselves against and a way to value that work."
Today we're launching a new project here at Nexus Labs. Some of you will say, "What took you so long???". Others will say, "WTF?". This newsletter answers both of those questions, plus it invites you to participate in the fun. Commercial buildings owners are now required to digitize, decarbonize, protect the health of occupants, and provide those occupants with a great user experience—all while realizing the business results of each of the stakeholders involved. And all of this change is only happening faster and faster. 🤯They need to level up.
Before I shut down my consulting practice earlier this year, I had the opportunity to support one last building in Manhattan. This building has more submeters per square foot, per floor, per system, and per tenant than any building I've ever seen. AND, perhaps predictably, all that data is barely being used. We've talked before (most recently here) about how important utility data is for decarbonization and ESG goals. Figuring out how much carbon you emit today is the vital first step on the road to emitting zero.
Longtime listeners to the Nexus podcast know my favorite question: Why is the technology in buildings so far behind? I love asking it because I keep getting different, but insightful answers, which help us understand the obstacles we need to collectively overcome to make smarter buildings. However, after asking it dozens of times, there’s still one answer I believe in but haven’t yet heard: Our industry is behind because we don’t yet have enough API-first companies.
Each month, the Nexus Pro community comes together for our member gathering. Think: dozens of smart buildings nerds networking on Zoom! 🤓At our June 2022 member gathering, Andrew Knueppel of Cushman Wakefield presented his thoughts on procuring vital master systems integrator (MSI) services for a client. This presentation resonated with lots of our members (including me!), and today I want to share Andrew's insights more broadly. As a reminder, there are no certifications or standards or minimum qualifications to be an MSI. You simply submit a bid on MSI work and if you win, you call yourself the MSI. For buildings owners, this can be confusing!
Welcome to The Lens, a monthly-ish recurring series where I unpack the strategy and context behind the news. (Normally, these deep dives are exclusive to members of Nexus Pro. Enjoy!)For Volume 10, let's talk about Sparkfund's acquisition of EPX Group. This acquisition has not been previously publicly announced, meaning this is BREAKING NEWS brought to you by Nexus Labs! How exciting…Volume 10 post brings together our recent coverage of M&A activity in decarbonization software and continues our series on the growth and importance of platform business models in the digitization and decarbonization of the buildings industry.
A wide gap has grown between (1) what technology is capable of and (2) what the average building automation system (BAS) is capable of. Simultaneously, building owners are demanding better performance out of building systems—a level of performance that’s extremely rare, perhaps impossible, with the old technology. Consider a few use cases from recent conversations and projects:
Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.
We've been building up our Lore (a body of traditions and knowledge) on the subject of smart building technology for the last 2+ years. I know this because our (particularly) nerdy terms and acronyms—IDL, ASC, etc—are gaining steam and showing up in specifications, investor pitch decks, and conference agendas around the world.Part of my job as the founder of this amazing community is to help define and curate our Lore. So today, I'm sharing our white paper on the core concepts that come up again and again in this newsletter, on the Nexus podcast, in the Nexus Foundations course, and in Nexus Pro gatherings, and in the community chatroom.
Today, we're wrapping up our series on Nexus Lore: the core concepts that come up again and again in this newsletter, on the Nexus podcast, in the Nexus Foundations course, in Nexus Pro gatherings, and in the community chatroom.If you want to start at the beginning, check out our white paper with all 10 parts: Nexus Lore. Lore is never written by one person, so send us your feedback for v2!
Today, we're continuing our series on Nexus Lore: the core concepts that come up again and again in this newsletter, on the Nexus podcast, in the Nexus Foundations course, in Nexus Pro gatherings, and in the community chatroom.If you want to start at the beginning, check out our white paper with all 10 parts: Nexus Lore. Lore is never written by one person, so send us your feedback for v2!
Today, we're continuing our series on Nexus Lore: the core concepts that come up again and again in this newsletter, on the Nexus podcast, in the Nexus Foundations course, in Nexus Pro gatherings, and in the community chatroom. If you want to start at the beginning, check out our white paper with all 10 parts: Nexus Lore. Lore is never written by one person, so send us your feedback for v2! Let's jump into Part 8, the sexiest building block...
Today, we're continuing our series on Nexus Lore: the core concepts that come up again and again in this newsletter, on the Nexus podcast, in the Nexus Foundations course, in Nexus Pro gatherings, and in the community chatroom. If you want to start at the beginning, check out our white paper with all 10 parts: Nexus Lore. Lore is never written by one person, so send us your feedback for v2! Let's jump into Part 7, our nerdiest building block...
Welcome to The Lens, a monthly-ish recurring series where I unpack the strategy and context behind the news in as few words as possible. For past editions, check out Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5, Vol. 6, Vol. 7, and Vol. 8. For Volume 9, let's talk about Arcadia's acquisition of Urjanet.
Welcome to the Nexus Pro member digest… a collection of recent highlights you shouldn’t miss. These digests are designed to save you time and allow you to catch up on the whole month. Then you can dive deeper wherever you’d like.
Let's continue our series on Nexus Lore: the core concepts that come up again and again in this newsletter, on the Nexus podcast, in the Nexus Foundations course, in Nexus Pro gatherings, and in the community chatroom.If you want to start at the beginning, check out our white paper with all 10 parts: Nexus Lore.
Let's continue our series on Nexus Lore: the core concepts that come up again and again in this newsletter, on the Nexus podcast, in the Nexus Foundations course, in Nexus Pro gatherings, and in the community chatroom. If you want to start at the beginning, check out our white paper with all 10 parts: Nexus Lore.
Welcome to The Lens, a monthly-ish recurring series where I unpack the strategy and context behind the news in as few bullet points as possible. For past editions, check out Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5, Vol. 6, and Vol. 7.For Volume 8, let's talk about Measurabl's acquisition of Hatch Data.
Head over to Nexus Connect and see what’s new in the community. Don’t forget to check out the latest member-only events.
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