Momenta Partners recently announced investment in a seed round for Soofa, a provider of smart kiosks and benches based in Cambridge, MA. As part of Insight Vector series, we want to share our perspective on the space.
One of the most visible ways that cities are embracing Connected Industry concepts is through the adoption of smart kiosks that offer services such as schedules, directions, advertisements, device charging and even free WiFi.
Smart kiosks allow cities to re-purpose real estate that had previously been used for payphone booths (remember those?) and provide citizens and visitors with valuable information and services. The market is still in its early stages, and there’s a lot of opportunity for a broad range of participants, from large technology firms, to startups, to services and consulting companies.
Smart Cities are a sprawling opportunity
Like many segments of the emerging Connected Industry ecosystem, the market for Smart City solutions is sprawling and hard to define, and business models are still evolving. In many respects, Smart City IoT (Internet of Things) is similar to Industrial IoT– being able to implement predictive maintenance is the goal for many solutions, but the difference is who pays for it. Cities want to maintain existing budgets and not risk losing them but it’s not a trivial proposition to secure funding for new initiatives.
Many cities are looking to use technology to improve the quality of life for residents – for instance environmental services to measure pollution or pollen counts, emergency services, transportation updates, or local business directories. As an example, there are over 450 different parking apps in the US with no common integration between them. It’s a “Cambrian Explosion” of innovation in Smart Cities. According to Rezelman, there are many different projects underway simultaneously - Boston, New York, San Francisco and Chicago are melting pots of thousands of projects. It’s a fragmented and undefined market in the US – particularly compared to Europe.
Partners are needed to make smart kiosks a reality
There’s a lot more involved with implementing smart kiosks than a simple IT or infrastructure project. There are multiple components required: Hardware such as touchscreens, sensors, communications modules and other components; software to power services that integrate multiple information sources including advertising; connectivity including dedicated connected with reliable access and bandwidth; and the real estate. Rolling out smart kiosks is not a simple proposition: there are typically multiple partnerships needed to roll out kiosks in public spaces, and it can take years. Most of the large scale smart kiosk initiatives are being paid for with advertising. A few of the companies participating in the Smart Kiosk market include Cisco, Diebold, IBM, KIOSK Information Systems, Verizon, NCR, Slabb, Meridian, Outerwall, Phoenix Kiosk, Photo Finale, Rosendahl Conceptkiosk, TravelersBox and many others.
The LinkNYC kiosks are being provided by CityBridge in accordance with a franchise agreement granted by the City of New York. CityBridge is a partnership between QualComm, Intersection (Sidewalk Labs/Google) and CIVIQ Civic SmartScapes. The project involves replacing phone booths in the city with kiosks – when finished there will be around 7,500, all paid for with advertising. The kiosks have a 55” touchscreen and basically function as a Wi-Fi tower. In Miami-Dade and Chicago it’s a larger screen with ads on one side and touchscreen on the other.
LinkNYC Kiosk in NYC. Source: LinkNYC
In our next post we’ll discuss the long-term vision for smart kiosks and how smart kiosk intelligence can create value in smart cities.
In the meantime, contact us to learn more about smart kiosks and their market opportunity, or any of our IoT Thought Leadership capabilities via Momenta Insights.
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