Average investment ticket size at the seed stage saw an impressive 57% rise in the field force automation sector, a sign that new companies emerging in this area continue to elicit investor interest. Investment ticket size at the Series A remained almost stagnant while Series B saw a 12% decline at $11M.
Following a peak 2015 in terms of funding which saw $397M secured in 76 rounds, 2016 saw an almost 75% decline in overall funding with $100M secured in 34 rounds, perhaps attributed to the global funding slowdown.
While this sector has evolved significantly over the past decade, it is still fragmented. This could be could be due to the fact that field service processes may vary from one industry. Besides, no software provider has been able to incorporate the critical areas of complete field service lifecycle.
The market size for field service management is estimated to grow from $1.97B in 2015 to $5.11B by 2020, at an estimated CAGR of 21%, driven by the need for a centralized system for the management of field services to attain operational efficiency and higher customer satisfaction levels.
In terms of company formation, the sector witnessed peak activity over the last four years as 363 companies emerged in the space. In contrast, 2016 was a muted year in this aspect.
Maintenance (startups offering solutions to manage workforce, field related processes, and technician service business) and construction (solutions catering to construction field workers and construction managers) were the top funded business models in this sector.
Some of the largest upcoming sectors in this sector included those in the construction space that offered solutions to safety & inspection (Safesite), collaboration (Construct) and document management (PlanGrid). Services marketplace (Field Nation), companies that offered services as images & video (Librestream) and smart glass (APX Labs) emerged as the upcoming niches in this sector.
Some of the notable investment rounds for this year so far were bagged by Denver-based GoSpotCheck ($17M), Sydney-based Avoka ($17M), New York-based HandShake ($14M) and Canada-based Librestream ($8M).
Some significant consolidation activity was witnessed, as the year saw three acquisitions till date. While Indegene’s acquisition of Oakville-based Skura Corporation was reported at a deal value of $9M, Honeywell’s acquisition of Mexico-based Movilizer and Britehouse’s acquisition of South Africa-based AdvanceMobility were undisclosed in terms of deal size. No IPO activity has been reported in this sector till date.
Salesforce (APX Labs, ServiceMax), Point Nine Capital (Handshake, GoSpotCheck), Emergence Capital (Handshake, ServiceMax), Intel Capital (Dexterra, TOA Technologies) and Motorola (Dexterra, Canvas) were the most active investors in this space. Read the full 163 page report below.