Amazon is taking another step into the Internet of Things. TechCrunch has learned, and confirmed, that the e-commerce and cloud services giant has acquired 2lemetry, a startup based out of Denver that has developed an enterprise-focused platform to track and manage IP-enabled machines and other connected devices.
Terms of the deal, which we heard was finalized earlier this week, were not disclosed. 2lemetry, founded in 2011, had raised $9 million, including a $4 million round in January of this year from investors that included Salesforce Ventures.
Reaching out to 2lemetry, our queries were forwarded to Amazon. A spokesperson confirmed the acquisition with a short statement that noted that the service will continue to operate for existing customers.
“I can confirm that Amazon has acquired 2lemetry and we look forward to continuing to support 2lemetry customers,” a spokesperson said. Those customers include Honeywell, the Demeter energy group and First Mile, an office recycling service.
Amazon declined to answer any other questions about the deal, but one guess is that this will be folded into AWS, where Amazon has made other moves into the enterprise IoT space.
Specifically, in 2013, the company introduced a platform called Kinesis to process and analyse high-volume data streams from any number of sources and in real time — a move seen by some as the company’s first foray into the IoT business. Integrating 2lemetry’s team and technology could be one way of enhancing the functionality of that solution and configuring it specifically for machine-to-machine deployments.
Another area where 2lemetry has been developing products is in using its platform for commercial deployments such as retail environments where, for example, a merchant might use a network of beacons to alert shoppers on their phones to offers and other messages. (And interestingly, it appears to also have developed facial-recognition technology. “The 2lemetry Facial Recognition technology can trigger environment changes and “real-life” analytics based on the recognized age and gender of individuals,” the company notes.) Physical commerce is another area where Amazon has been attempting to expand its reach, and so this could potentially be another area where 2lemetry’s technology would be useful.
More widely, Amazon has also been pushing its cred in IoT on the consumer front. It now sells home automation hardware such as smart locks and thermostats in its own store. Coupled with the work Amazon has put into Echo, its own connected-home assistant hardware, perhaps 2lemetry’s technology could find its way into a consumer-focused service, too.
