Hands-free access
Openpath
With the Australia fires, the threat of World War III, and now the global coronavirus outbreak, it’s been a rough start to 2020. Amidst the doom and gloom, there is occasional respite with good news in proptech as the sector, and its players, continue to go from strength to strength. One such story is that of Openpath, a trailblazing Silicon Beach access control startup. This time last year, we looked at the combination of factors that make it one of the frontrunners in its niche.
One year on, the company has been growing fast, claiming to be active across North America (with plans to land in Europe at the end of 2020), with over 150,000 people using its system daily. Co-founder James Segil shared they have developed over 40 new integrations since we last spoke, secured eight patents (with more pending) and launched several unique capabilities such as a flexible lockdown feature and measures to deter tailgating (illegitimately entering an area on the heels of someone who has legitimate access). According to Segil, this is largely thanks to the company’s cloud-native programming based on open APIs which allows them to deploy updates and new integrations on a weekly basis, compared to the lengthy development cycles that characterize legacy access control systems. Openpath sells innovative hardware that can integrate with a building’s legacy systems and software that can manage both.
This integrative capability is what allowed Openpath to strike significant partnership deals, such as the tie-in with Lincoln Property Company (said to be one of the largest diversified real estate services firms in the United States) announced in late February. According to Lincoln’s VP of innovation and technology ventures, Eric Roseman, the company entered into the partnership because it is acutely aware of the competition for tenant experience, a topic we have frequently addressed in this column. With large technology companies playing pivotal roles as tenants for Lincoln’s commercial real estate portfolio, they wanted to find technologically innovative ways of serving their experience, starting at the door.
Rosman shared that, “For Lincoln Property Company innovation means consistent evolution; we are incredibly excited to partner with OpenPath who will help us stay ahead of the curve and produce frictionless and delightful experiences for our tenants at LPC managed and developed projects.” Lincoln plans to roll out Openpath technology across its redevelopment pipeline, with a focus on landmark projects that will be state of the art assets in the future.
In addition to this, Openpath is announcing – exclusively via this column – a partnership and investment deal with Allegion Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Allegion plc. Allegion is a global leader in life safety products, which in March 2018 rolled out a $50 million fund that, according to Allegion chief innovation and design officer (and Allegion Ventures president) Rob Martens, was set up to look at adjacent business areas the company doesn’t have a core competence in but thinks will become significant to its market on the basis of Martens’ team’s study of megatrends. The investment, for an undisclosed amount, is Allegion Ventures’ seventh deal: they have also backed HqO, Robin, Pindrop, Conneqtech, Nuki and Yonomi.
Martens shared that one of Allegion’s core strengths is that they “own a unique geography on the door” which allows them to interact with everything inside and outside it. The company’s strategy is to have open access technology in place to engender seamless access, and this ties in with Openpath’s approach perfectly. In fact, according to Martens, “Openpath is a critical partner for us, as our product integrates perfectly with their tech and is perfectly symbiotic for seamless access.” The goal is to provide users with increased productivity and simplify the user experience, going beyond Allegion’s core hardware products. The two companies will partner in the marketplace and work on proof of concept experiments and ongoing deployment of hardware and technology, with the goal of improving both Allegion and Openpath’s products in areas ranging from user experience to deep tech integrations.
Commenting on the announcement, Segil told me that, “As one of the leading brands in the physical security industry, Allegion brings tremendous value as both a partner and investor to Openpath. Their investment and partnership represent validation of Openpath as both an industry disruptor and the future of access control technology.”
This is just the latest step along Openpath’s journey towards making access better. One use case I found fascinating in its simplicity is how its tie in with Dominos Pizza keeps its delivery personnel safe as they can come in through the back door faster, reducing the probability of them being robbed after a delivery, and also keeps the company safe from criminal activity by former staff – a potential risk in an industry with a 25% turnover rate. Moreover, the company is collecting granular data insights into user behavior, which portfolio owners will be able to channel to deliver a better tenant experience for their customers. I am looking forward to seeing what news they have for me next year!