Fortune Article

Trick or treat, Data Sheet readers! VMware is dedicating $1 billion to R&D in China, while Autodesk is setting aside $100 million for 3D printing startups. Plus, big data insights from buildings aren’t limited to energy efficiency: Intelligent lighting controls are part of the formula.

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Google mobile and robotics guru exits. Apparently the management shakeup disclosed late last week—which landed Sundar Pichai as No. 2—wasn't quite done. Android software visionary Andy Rubin is leaving to start an incubator for hardware companies. He most recently ran robotics development and spearheaded the acquisitions of Boston Dynamics, Schaft, and Meka Robotics. Wall Street Journal

CLOUD CHATTER

VMware invests $1 billion in Chinese innovation. A new, five-year-long research and development initiative in Beijing will focus on localizing technology through collaborations with academia and other developers. The first project covers software for running virtual desktops.

STATS & SPECS

Meet Lenovo, the world's No. 3 smartphone maker. The giant Chinese technology company closed its $2.9 billion buyout of Motorola, which gives it a 7.4% share of the worldwide market. Samsung (with 23.8%) and Apple (12%) still hold the top two spots. Another Chinese company, Xiaomi, is gaining on all three. Meanwhile, Sony just replaced the senior executive at its ailing mobile division. Fortune, ZDNet

STARTUPS & DISRUPTORS

Autodesk sets aside $100 million for 'maker' movement. The software company's new Spark Investment Fund is dedicated to startups and designers developing ideas or products inspired by its open source, 3D printing technology (aka Spark). Early partners include 3D Hubs (which orchestrates print jobs), Authentise (digital rights), Dremel (printer hardware), Local Motors (large-format manufacturing), and MatterFab (industrial metals).

Charge gadgets without the wires. uBeam's technology uses ultrasonic sound waves to charge the batteries on smartphones and other gadgets. Your device requires a special protective case to receive the signals, but it doesn't have to be placed right next to the transmitter like with other wireless charging approaches. The company has now raised $12 million from the likes of Upfront Ventures, along with individuals investors including Zappos co-founder Tony Tsieh, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, and "shark" investor Mark Cuban. TechCrunch

FAQ

Your building has secrets to tell. Are you listening?

From 2014 to 2023, the cumulative investment in energy efficiency retrofits could total $959 billion, according to forecasts by Navigant Research. And when it comes to effective energy efficiency technologies, LED lighting ranks right near the top.

A quick example. Retail cooperative Ace Hardware cut its per-square-foot power consumption by almost 40% when it upgraded parts of its retail support center in Rocklin, Calif., a year ago using intelligent lighting from Boston-based Digital Lumens. The move translated into an average electricity savings of 81%, according to data disclosed by the two companies.

With paybacks of that nature, it's easy to see why Digital Lumens just landed another $23 million in venture backing this week led by Nokia Growth Partners. Overall, its technology covers more than 100 million square feet of space in commercial and industrial buildings, and customers include the likes of Coca-Cola and JetBlue.

But the big data generated by smart lighting sensors can tell businesses far more things about a building than how much power it consumes.

The ones sold by another upstart in this space, Enlighted in Sunnyvale, Calif., collect far broader environmental, occupancy and activity data. Although its initial focus is lighting efficiency, the historical information collected by those sensors will underpin other services envisioned by the company such as safety, disaster recovery alerts, security, space planning, and a host of other applications.

"Sure, we have data on lighting that can be used to drive the initial investment, but that is actually the least valuable application," says CEO Joe Costello, who previously led Cadence Design Systems. "We act as the Internet of things for commercial real estate, we can be the nervous system or brain for the building."

Consider that Enlighted's occupancy sensors—used to turn lights on and off as necessary—also track how often offices, cubicles or meeting rooms are used over time. Reports gleaned from that information could be invaluable for companies trying to figure out whether an existing building can handle a growing workforce or whether an office redesign could help make better use of existing space.

"You can finally make data-based decisions about real estate," Costello says.

Enlighted technology currently manages about 30 million square feet for businesses including Agilent Technology, Interface Global, LinkedIn, and several Fortune 500 companies Costello can't name publicly.

The company hopes to drive more rapid adoption of its technology with a new financing model that replaces capital investments normally required for LED retrofits with contracts similar to power purchase agreements.

Under this "energy savings as a service" program, Enlighted customers pay a fixed rate for improvements over time—it guarantees an energy savings of 10-20%. The rate varies according to contract length and the size of the retrofit. Enlighted has arranged more than $1 billion in financing for this model over the next several years, backed by more than a dozen financial institutions. (Costello won't name them, but Deutsche Bank Securities is quoted in the company's press release about the new program.)

"We are thrilled to have landed on the mechanism that will quickly diffuse this technology across a company’s global real estate portfolio,” he says.

ONE MORE THING

Order Starbucks grande via smartphone. More than 7 million transactions per week flow through the coffee and tea retailer's groundbreaking mobile application. Starting in December, it will debut a service in Portland, Ore., that lets customers place orders that way—paring long lines during peak hours. A nationwide rollout of this new customer loyalty approach is planned for next year. ZDNet