Bethesda’s Brivo just raised $92.5M in a dual investment round

After launching an access badge for the digital wallet just a few months ago, Bethesda, Maryland’s Brivo has another reason to celebrate.

Brivo, which develops cloud technology for access control and smart buildings, just announced a $92.5 million round from security integration company SECOM. At the same time, SECOM is also investing $100 million into Eagle Eye Networks, Brivo’s Texas-based “sister company.”

Eagle Eye Networks and Brivo are both majority-owned by Dean Drako, the founder of Eagle Eye who acquired the stake in Brivo in 2015 and chairs the company’s board. Brivo CEO Steve Van Till said that both companies operate separately, though they occasionally collaborate in sales. The investments, as well, are separate but occurring at the same time.

With the new funds, Brivo will be looking to grow its sales team and evaluate potential acquisitions. The company is also looking to boost product development by adding new AI functionalities for the larger companies it works with and expanding internationally, especially in the Japanese market.

“Right now we’re very active in the enterprise market, which is the larger companies that are out there, and adding lots of features for those kinds of users,” Van Till told Technical.ly. 

Over the past year, Van Till said, Brivo has grown 38% and reached over $100 million in revenue. He also said that the company primarily works with real estate owners, who aren’t always inclined to adopt new tech; still, Brivo pushed forward for more investment and interest in property tech.

“[This has] really highlighted for everybody the value of connecting your real estate assets up to the cloud and mobile applications,” Van Till said. “So we feel like we’ve really got a tailwind right now.”

This move comes after Brivo took an interest in a different funding approach last year: The company began the process of a SPAC acquisition, which would have taken the company public, but Brivo opted out of the process in the end.

But with this new investment, Van Till said, Brivo is getting recognition from a global leader and has a new opportunity to grow.

“The amount of money is something that allows us to grow much faster in all the dimensions,” Van Till said. “The cooperation, that we’ll have in the international markets — particularly in Japan, of course — is also very meaningful. … We’re very excited about being able to get into that market with cloud-based security services.”