Building an Internet of Things Platform Company from Zaragoza, Spain: Alicia Asin, CEO of Libelium (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: Other than universities, are there any other vertical trends that you see in terms of kinds of companies – retail, logistics, or healthcare? Where are you seeing the projects?

Alicia Asin: Because we are a horizontal platform, we have customers not only in universities but also in system integrators and communication companies.

Sramana Mitra: I understand. This is more of a trend question. What kinds of killer apps are you seeing? What segments are coming up with IoT killer apps than others.

Alicia Asin: The first one is Smart cities. It’s a dynamic segment in the IoT. It’s surprising that agriculture seems to be a mature market where we also have a lot of innovators willing to test technologies.

Sramana Mitra: Is there a geographical bias? Is it European or American cities? Where are you seeing a lot of Smart city projects?

Alicia Asin: We have projects in five continents. Europe is very active because of the European Project funding. We have a lot of operators and universities cooperating together in this kind of project. Also, Middle East, Australia, and Asia are growing markets for Smart cities. US is also deploying a lot of Smart cities and projects. What we are seeing also in Latin America is that there are cities that are totally rebuilt according to Smart cities principle. We are seeing big opportunities absolutely everywhere. That’s what I want to transmit. It’s global.

Sramana Mitra: When you say Smart city projects, what kind of things are these cities doing with your platform? Are these applications to do with energy resources control? What kind of applications are we talking about?

Alicia Asin: First of all, detecting free parking spots. That’s one thing. Environmental control as well where they monitor all kinds of gases – CO, CO2, O2, ozone, NO2, and dust particles. We can also monitor the water quality which is a very new line we opened this year. It’s getting a lot of traction to ensure the quality of the rivers and lakes in city surroundings.

Sramana Mitra: What else is interesting in your story? I think we understand how you’ve built the company. It looks like this platform is 70% of your revenue. What is the ramp? Where are you now, revenue-wise?

Alicia Asin: We ended last year with revenue of $4 million. This year, we expect to finish with $5.5 million.

Sramana Mitra: You have self-financed this whole thing, right? It’s based on revenue financing and grant awards that you got. That’s the only kind of financing that went into the company?

Alicia Asin: Yes, exactly. We’ve never taken any investment from outside.

Sramana Mitra: How many people do you have now?

Alicia Asin: Counting employees and interns, we are 63 people.

Sramana Mitra: All of them are in Zaragoza?

Alicia Asin: Yes, except for one US employee.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Building an Internet of Things Platform Company from Zaragoza, Spain: Alicia Asin, CEO of Libelium
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