Amid the dozens of news releases sent out about the McKinney Economic Development Corporation’s Innovation Fund aimed at attracting or helping to expand early-stage businesses, a few were never sent out.
Towards the beginning of the year, Allen-based iOpen Innovations, an IoT monitoring system startup, received one of the fund’s grants – bringing it back to the city it started in ahead of its first product deployment.
“Now that hotels are really trying to push keeps that distance in case of any variants from COVID, it really helps to coordinate better on the housekeeping side on the hotel … which goes back to the bottom line there into their end of the month, budget,” said Don Bahlman, iOpen co-founder and CEO. “On the other side of this… we’re sharing this back also to the guest. And as a guest … you’ll be able to get text messages, if you opt-in, that say, ‘Hey, someone’s in your room.’”
Financial terms were not disclosed. iOpen’s announcement was delayed due to staffing shortages at the EDC.
The pre-revenue company was initially founded in 2016 in McKinney and later moved to Allen around 2018. With the grant funding, iOpen relocated to new offices at the Summit Park development near Eldorado Parkway and Central Expressway. In the new space, iOpen, whose team is largely remote, is looking to grow its headcount from about seven to around 20 over the next two years.
Focused on the hotel industry, the company’s product – SafeStay365 – incorporates IoT sensors in rooms that allow hotel staff and patrons to know when the room is occupied. For the hotel, this allows them to know when a room is occupied by a person if there’s cleaning staff present and avoid double-booking rooms. For customers, it provides security and safety, knowing if someone else has entered the room. Bahlman said the SafeStay365 system doesn’t use audio, visual or heat mapping technology in the interest of privacy.
“At the end of the day … it’s not your home, so someone else has access to a certain degree,” Bahlman said. “We say this is the honest system because we let hotels know, and we let the guests know, and we raise that level of trust.”
After pandemic setbacks to the travel industry, iOpen is in the midst of its first deployment at a hotel in Nashville. Bahlman said there would likely be more deployments in the first quarter of next year, adding that he sees opportunities for the technology to be deployed in places like senior living facilities, apartment complexes, college dorms and Airbnb units. He also said iOpen is working on developing a consumer-facing system that can be used in the home.
“We’ve been looking at the design side of that, how we roll that out and get it funded. It’s really exciting,” Bahlman said.
When initially launched, iOpen was focused on creating an automated system for hotel rooms that would return things like a room’s lighting and blinds position to the way they were left when a person reentered the room. However, around 2018, the company pivoted to its current focus after a friend stated that her real concern while staying at a hotel wasn’t comfort but safety. Bahlman said the company was poised for big things in 2019 until plans were delayed by the pandemic.
“We decided this was a real mission. It was something more than a nice-to-have. It was something that could really keep some folks safe, and so, we decided to go for it,” Bahlman said.
Launched at the beginning of 2020, the McKinney EDC’s Innovation Fund has closed more than 20 deals to help businesses relocate to or expand within the city. That represents 565 planned new jobs and a real estate demand of more than 70,000 square feet.
“Next year is going to be good,” Bahlman said. “We’ve gotten more from building something ourselves, really diving into the software side of it, using existing hardware, and using it in a different way than it was purposed.”
