smart-city
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Las Rozas Innova gives startups a city to test in
A municipal company near Madrid connects founders with real users, turns public roofs into power plants and puts new technology through everyday tests. The useful part is what happens after the pitch.
Signify Turned the Light Bulb Into a Data Business
The company that used to be Philips Lighting bet that a light bulb is really a data point. Here is how a 130-year-old lamp business turned itself into smart homes, connected cities and carbon-neutral factories - and where that bet gets shaky.
The Chinese Software Company Quietly Running the World's Phone Bills
It was ZTE's software arm, then Alibaba bought it and gave it a whale for a logo. Today Whale Cloud's ZSmart platform quietly meters the calls, data, and monthly bills of more than a billion people across 80-plus countries.
Beam Mobility
The Singapore startup that turned the shared e-scooter into a negotiation with city hall - and is now merging its way to more than 100 cities.
Vietnam Blockchain Corporation
Vietnam Blockchain Corporation (VBC) is a Ho Chi Minh City-based science and technology company founded in 2016 that builds and deploys practical blockchain solutions for enterprises and government. Its flagship platform, Agridential.vn, brings digital traceability and supply-chain transparency to agriculture, while its Blockchain-as-a-Service offering serves manufacturing, logistics, e-commerce, fintech, and smart-city projects. VBC positions itself as a hub for blockchain expertise in Southeast Asia, with more than 50 projects and 180+ partners and customers.
W-Locate Pte Ltd
W-Locate is a Singapore-based location technology company that blends machine-to-machine (M2M) telematics, big data, cloud computing and location intelligence. Its two flagship platforms - FIND (Fleet Intelligent Dynamics), a cloud fleet-management system, and XimLoc, a patent-pending SIM-based positioning technology that locates any SIM device indoors or outdoors without relying solely on GPS - serve enterprises, mobile operators and governments across Asia. Founded in 2010 by Stevie Ooi, the company has raised roughly US$2M+ from TNF Ventures and RHB-OSK, and works with partners such as Tata Communications to deliver location services for construction, logistics, waste management and smart-city use cases.
Joyride
Joyride is a Toronto-based mobility software company that gives operators, cities, dealers and OEMs a white-label platform to launch and run shared and rental fleets of e-bikes, e-scooters, golf carts, low-speed vehicles and other lightweight vehicles. Its hardware-agnostic system turns vehicles into connected, keyless and trackable assets, pairing branded rider apps with a fleet-management dashboard, IoT connectivity, payments and increasingly AI-driven operations tools. Founded in 2014 and backed by Yamaha Motor, Joyride powers fleets across 250+ markets on five continents.
IntelliVision
IntelliVision is a San Jose-based developer of AI and deep-learning video and audio analytics software for smart cameras. Founded in 2002, its software runs on the edge, on-server and in the cloud to power face detection and recognition, license plate recognition, object detection and classification, intrusion detection, and driver-assistance (ADAS/DMS) systems. Sold primarily to camera makers (ODMs), chipset vendors, security integrators and OEMs, its analytics have shipped in millions of cameras across smart home, smart city, retail, banking/ATM, transportation and automotive markets. The company was acquired by Nortek Security & Control in 2018 and now operates as part of Nice.
Ettifos
Ettifos is a South Korea-based, 5G-focused V2X (vehicle-to-everything) company building the communication layer that lets cars, roadside infrastructure, and pedestrians exchange safety and traffic data in real time. Its flagship SIRIUS platform uses a software-defined modem that can switch between LTE-V2X and 5G-V2X with a software update, and its plug-and-play V2X-AIR onboard unit brings standards-compliant connectivity to both new and existing vehicles. Founded in 2018, the company works with partners like Keysight, Autotalks, Audi, and Kapsch TrafficCom, and closed a Series B round in 2025 to scale a C-V2X hardware accelerator chip and expand into U.S. and European markets.
Marketplace.city
Marketplace.city is a Chicago-based govtech company that helps state and local governments source, validate, and procure technology. Its Clearbox platform turns a repository of historical vendor, contract, and pricing data into managed procurement services (Clearbox Procure) and a research subscription (Clearbox Source), aiming to compress technology buying cycles that once ran months or years down to roughly 100 days. Founded out of a 2016 collaboration with New York City's Mayor's Office of Technology and Innovation, the company has supported over 200 governments.
Soofa
Soofa builds solar-powered, network-connected digital signs that turn ordinary street corners into two-way community bulletin boards. Spun out of the MIT Media Lab in 2014, the women-founded company started with a phone-charging park bench and grew into a network of zero-carbon kiosks that broadcast hyperlocal news, transit updates, and events while giving advertisers and cities measurable pedestrian data - smart, social, and sustainable street furniture for the modern city.
Volley Automation
Volley Automation builds AI-enabled robotic parking systems that use fleets of autonomous guided vehicles (AGVs) and proprietary control software to shuttle cars into optimized storage inside garages. The result is up to 2x denser parking, no below-grade digging, valet-like convenience without attendants, and lower embodied carbon than a conventional concrete ramp garage. Founded in 2018 and now headquartered in Denver, Volley works with developers on projects across New York, Nashville, California, Florida and Massachusetts.
Polaris Wireless
Polaris Wireless is a Silicon Valley company that pinpoints where a mobile phone is - not just on a map, but on which floor of a building. Founded in 1999, it pioneered software-based Wireless Location Signatures (WLS) and high-accuracy 3D / z-axis location, technology used by wireless carriers and public safety agencies so that when someone dials 911 from the 30th floor, responders know which floor. With 90+ patents and 50+ deployments worldwide, Polaris turns radio noise into vertical certainty for E911, IoT, smart cities and enterprise applications.
Kaizen
Kaizen (Kaizen Labs) is a New York-based civic technology company building modern, people-first software for America's essential public services. Its AI-native, highly configurable SaaS platform replaces aging legacy systems across permitting, parks and recreation, licensing, transit, payments, and resident engagement. Founded by Nikhil Reddy and KJ Shah, Kaizen partners with local, state, and federal agencies to give residents consumer-grade digital experiences - from reserving a campsite to renewing a license - while restoring public trust in government services.
Hayden AI
Hayden AI is a San Francisco-based vision-AI company that turns city buses into rolling sensors. Its behind-the-windshield cameras and edge-AI perception stack detect bus-lane and bus-stop violations in real time, then send verified evidence to enforcement agencies - powering programs in New York, DC, Los Angeles, and beyond.