Butlr Technologies Inc., which styles itself an “artificial intelligence of things” startup, today announced that it has raised additional funding from Qualcomm Ventures LLC and launched the next generation of its Heatic wireless sensors.

Founded in 2019 as a spinoff from the MIT Media Lab, Butlr offers a people monitoring platform that uses body heat to detect occupancy, headcount, body posture and activity. This data can be used to generate accurate, real-time and historical spatial insights.

The company’s patented Heatic sensors and software platform provide data and insights on space occupancy, utilization and activity. Butlr’s application programming interface offers real-time and historical data on a building’s indoor foot traffic, occupancy levels and activity for asset management, real estate investment planning and policy-making.

The new Heatic 2 sensors are wirelessly and magnetically mounted, are quick to install and cover twice the area of the original sensors, the company says. A new zone feature in the sensors monitors desk utilization, soft seating and activity, while a Space Visualizer shows usage trends based on heatmaps and people detections over time.

The data gathered allows customers to conduct A/B testing to determine the best office layout that reflects the culture of the workforce and the needs of the organization. Customers and partners can integrate occupancy data with other databases and develop customized tools that meet their unique business requirements.

“There’s a growing demand for intelligent solutions that provide accurate and real-time occupancy utilization data to better support the hybrid work environment,” Carlos Kokron, vice president of Qualcomm and managing director of Qualcomm Ventures Americas, said in a statement. “Butlr’s next-generation wireless occupancy-sensing platform provides customers with spatial insights to drive better space utilization and improve operational efficiencies while preserving privacy.”

Notable customers include Standard Industries Inc., Slalon LLC, Georgia-Pacific LLC, Infogrid Ltd., AK Steel Holding Corp and Envoy Techonlogies Inc. The amount invested by Qualcomm was not disclosed.

The company last raised funding in July. It didn’t reveal the size of the new funding.

Excluding the new Qualcomm investment, Butlr has raised $28 million in venture capital funding, according to Crunchbase. Previous investors include Tiger Global LLC, Raytheon Stata Venture Partners LP, Primetime Partners LP, Carrier Group LLC, E14 Fund LP, Union Labs LLC, Hyperplane Venture Capital LLC and Tectonic Ventures LLC.

Image: Butlr