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NBT Builds API with metr and BuildingMinds

CO₂ reduction in the real estate sector: Next Big Thing AG, BuildingMinds, and metr Cooperate
  • Partners develop API solution for sustainable real estate management
  • Milestone for data-driven building management

Berlin, June 28, 2021 – The real estate industry has one of the highest carbon footprints and consumes around 40% of the world's energy. Efficient building management can significantly contribute to reducing this share. Digitizing buildings through IoT devices, smart sensors, and other technologies enable energy consumption analytics and uncovers CO₂ emission patterns not detected by traditional building systems.

Next Big Thing AG, its portfolio venture metr Building Management Systems GmbH, and BuildingMinds GmbH have announced an industry collaboration. Through innovative solutions for data-driven building management, they want to enable the effective management of building systems by developing an API solution.

API Solution for Sustainable Real Estate

Next Big Thing AG aims to create a standardized software connector via an application programming interface (API) between metr and BuildingMinds.

Currently, the existing BuildingMinds platform integrates advanced building analytics, KPI tracking, and provides a one-stop cloud platform for real estate portfolio owners and managers. This provides property stakeholders with a wide range of virtual dashboards, from financials to sustainability, to manage their portfolio's performance at every level.

The new standardized connector creates an intelligent and integrated environment, uniting multiple systems into one easy-to-use portal. While BuildingMinds monitors the carbon footprint and carbon risk analysis of buildings, metr provides the BuildingMinds platform with real-time consumption data from building systems (heating systems, potable water systems, water meters, gas meters, heating consumption — submetering, and electricity meters). "The cooperation between BuildingMinds, metr and Next Big Thing AG heralds the next level for automation in the real estate industry," said Harald Zapp, founder, and CEO of Next Big Thing AG. "Through our API, we make a wide range of building data available to the BuildingMinds platform. The latter can now include real-time data in its portfolio assessment and measures the cause-and-effect relationships of building systems. In this way, the solution helps reduce emissions.”

"Our API-first approach is critical to our strategy. It enables multi-directional integration with all types of data sources and systems, providing comprehensive data enrichment for our customers. To finally take real estate portfolio management to the next level, we use machine learning and AI," says Jens Müller, CEO of BuildingMinds GmbH.

The standardized connector will be used by NBT, metr, and BuildingMinds as a Common Data Model. NBT plans to further develop the API for all ventures in the building segment. These include ConcR, which specializes in digitizing the building industry, Auxolar, which develops smart solar energy solutions, and other future PropTech ventures.

Target Group
The platform addresses the entire real estate sector: property owners, managers, investors, portfolio managers, and tenants of residential and commercial buildings.

Advantages
The standardized connector enables customers to exercise control over their data and provides a number of additional benefits including:

- Reliable insights: executive dashboards, reports, and visualizations
- Deep insights: monitoring, exploration, and diagnosis of systems
- Predictive analytics: data-driven forecasts enable predictive action
- Data-driven recommendations: Testing and simulating business optimization scenarios
- Automation: cognitive AI supports the workforce team

The standardized connector leverages advanced technologies to address key sustainability issues in the real estate industry:

- CO₂ reduction: the platform provides accurate building data that allows building performance to be analyzed, monitored, and evaluated. This enables the real estate industry to quickly respond to anomalies in the building system and make informed decisions.
- Resource efficiency: by analyzing operational performance and consumption patterns (energy, CO₂ emissions, water use, and waste), the platform improves resource efficiency, creates sustainability benefits, and reduces costs.

About Next Big Thing AG

Founded in 2016 in Berlin, Next Big Thing AG (NBT) is a venture studio for the Machine Economy that co-founds deep-tech ventures with aspiring founders to deliver real-world impact. With its comprehensive portfolio of startups in IoT, AI, and DLT, NBT provides long-term support for B2B companies, including the full range of development toolkits, innovation strategies, mentoring for entrepreneurs and startups, as well as technical expertise and smart financing to future-proof Germany's position as an innovation location in Europe.

About metr

metr was founded in 2016 in Berlin and is a portfolio startup of Next Big Thing AG. metr aims to make housing management more efficient and sustainable and to bring transparency to the state of technical assets. To this end, metr develops data-driven solutions for the housing industry and networks them on a digital platform for technical building equipment. metr ensures simple, efficient, and secure building management and promotes sustainable living and working in buildings. For this approach, metr 2020 was awarded the Smart Country Startup Award by Bitkom. At the PropTech Germany Awards 2021, metr was among the top 3 in the category "Property Management".

About BuildingMinds

BuildingMinds is a Berlin-based PropTech that is transforming the way building portfolios are operated and managed around the world. Using a Common Data Model for the real estate industry, the company is laying the foundation for comprehensive, data-driven portfolio management to fully exploit the potential of new technologies in the areas of AI and machine learning. BuildingMinds leverages the expertise of a diverse, 80-strong team of professionals from around 30 countries. BuildingMinds is supported by two experienced partners, Schindler and the technology partner Microsoft. The combination of an integrated cloud platform with a digital building twin and data-driven insights enables not only unprecedented transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness, but also the holistic implementation of ESG strategies, thereby elevating portfolio management to a completely new level.

Press Contact

Lena Wiegand
Fink & Fuchs AG
+49 611 74131-0
nbt@finkfuchs.de