Smart Glass (SG) 1.0 inspired a passionate effort by a group of individuals and companies whose pioneering mission was to deliver on the technology's promise and transform our collective experience with windows. While the results fell short, the lessons learned in the process created a roadmap for the next wave of companies coming behind them to use as a guide for success.
This next series of posts will highlight the companies and their technologies that are positioning themselves to succeed where others have failed, starting in North America and then looking at Europe.
Since my experience and skill set are market-facing, I invited former colleague Andy McNeil, previously HALIO’s Director of Product, to help me assess these companies' underlying technology and product strengths.
Andy began as a daylighting consultant with Arup, where he helped architects design buildings that make better use of daylight. From there, he joined the Windows and Daylighting group at LBNL, where he researched control and simulation of dynamic facades. Since HALIO’s demise, he has been consulting for various companies in the facade technology space.
Emerging Themes from SG 2.0
It has been encouraging to discover clear evidence that the leaders in these companies have paid attention to the struggles of SG 1.0 and have internalized a number of the lessons learned. Before focusing on the companies themselves, I want to start the series by highlighting some big-picture themes observed from our research.
Licensing & Supplier Business Models: A number of companies are building their growth strategy around licensing their core competency—technology development—to incumbent players in the channel or by becoming technology suppliers. This is a marked departure from the approach View and Sage took, which sought to be the supplier of record for glazing contractors.
Manufacturing Strategies: The licensing/supplier model has substantial implications for the manufacturing strategy, as does the current fundraising climate. SG 2.0 companies are pursuing capital-efficient/asset-light approaches to standing up lines for their solutions. Some are seeking to integrate their line at the point of fabrication, while others are engaging with contract manufacturers to make their solution using existing equipment and capacity.
Price Sensitivity: Broadly, we see these companies advertising the cost-effectiveness of their solution as a leading feature. They focus on selling at a price that matches the value, which is encouraging and gives us hope that one or more of these companies has a realistic shot at helping smart glass technology become mainstream.
GTM Strategy: While SG 1.0 focused almost exclusively on the commercial facade market, SG 2.0 companies target automotive and residential ahead of pursuing commercial market segments. This is smart because it lowers the risk of entering the commercial facade market by diversifying revenue streams, maturing manufacturing processes, reducing costs, improving the product, and collecting reliability data that will only serve their push into commercial if they determine they want to be in that market.
Overall, we are seeing some encouraging and positive signs that the next wave of companies (and their technologies) are well-positioned to capitalize on the promise of smart glass. Multiple companies succeeding is very likely, which would be great for the market as it would create competition, keep prices in check, and ultimately make the market bigger for smart glass.
Tune in next week as we highlight the North American companies leading the charge in smart glass 2.0.
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About the Author:
Jonathan Hafemann is the Vice President Growth and Commercialization at NEXT Energy Technologies. He is an expert at developing scalable go-to-market strategies for early-stage property and climate technology solutions. His focus on sustainable solutions for the built market accelerates the transition to a net zero future. Follow Jonathan on LinkedIn
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