JE Dunn spinout Site 1001 raises millions more from local investors

A Kansas City-based tech firm that’s created a smart buildings platform recently raised another significant batch of venture capital funding.

Site 1001 — a technology spin out from Kansas City construction giant JE Dunn Construction — raised $6 million to boost its engineering, research and sales efforts. The round was led by JE Dunn Construction and included participation from other Kansas City firms, including Flyover Capital, Tifec, Ward Ventures and the KC Rise fund, Site 1001 said in a release.

The smart buildings market has significant untapped value, Site 1001 CEO Cleve Adams said. The new round allows the company to expand into such markets as smart city infrastructure, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and machine learning, he said.

With that expansion, Adams said he sees amazing potential for Site 1001.

“When we started researching the market and talking with customers and potential partners, we learned it was much bigger than we all realized,” he said. “We want to get into truly making our technology making buildings smart, and not just software that manages the workload. We have that capability, the right management team and people to do that.”

Site 1001 began just over a year ago as a facilities management platform that helped building owners and operators maintain the systems more efficiently. As the firm grew, Site 1001 has enhanced its platform through machine learning tools that help to recognize building components in existing facilities and automate interactions between building sensors and systems.

It also allows operators to more accurately predict equipment maintenance needs and assess the health of a building, Adams said. That will position the company to better find clients — such as governments or property owners — that need smart city or Internet of Things services.

Those services enable Site 1001 to ensnare a massive market, he said.

“There’s just not a bigger marketplace worldwide than smart cities — every city wants to be smart and every country wants to have a smart city,” Adams said. “Buildings don’t talk to each other today and things inside of buildings don’t talk to each other today. Elevators don’t talk to the HVAC system that doesn’t talk to the air filtration system that doesn’t talk to the building information modeling system. They don’t communicate with each other. We’re going to make that happen.”

The latest $6 million investment brings the firm’s total capital raised to $11 million.

Tom DeBacco, a general partner in Flyover Capital, said he’s excited with the direction of Site 1001. Flyover Capital — which participated in the first $5 million round — was attracted to reinvest thanks to Site 1001’s market and its team.

“It’s really a reinforcement of that market space — the IoT space — but especially what Site 1001 is doing and leveling everything growing in IoT from a buildings and build maintenance and facilities point of view,” DeBacco said of the decision to reinvest. “They’ve got a very seasoned leadership team that has experience growing startups, finding opportunities, finding markets and then accelerating growth. We’re very happy with the team we’ve assembled.”

Founded in 2016, Site 1001 has quickly grown to 30 staffers and features an executive team with decades of experience in technology, engineering, marketing and sales. The company also has three offices, with headquarters in Kansas City, a west coast branch in San Clemente, California and a research and development office in Bend, Oregon.