VC funds to invest over $1.6 bn in Internet of Things in 2014

Venture capital firms are expected to invest more than USD 1.6 billion this year on Internet of Things (IoT) technologies as more devices get connected to the Internet and increase efficiency as well as quality of people's lives, networking solutions giant Cisco said today.
The US-based firm said as many as 13.69 billion devices have been connected through the virtual medium so far this year.
"10.69 billion things were connected till Oct 2013, which has gone up to 13.69 billion in October 2014," Cisco Executive VP (Industry Solutions) and Chief Globalisation Officer, Wim Elfrink said at Internet of Things (IoT) World Forum here.

It is estimated that 50 billion objects to be connected by 2020, he added.
At present, only 37 per cent are industrial consumers of IoT, he said adding that the number is expected to exceed 50 per cent by 2017.
Investment too is on the rise. During this year, venture capital investments into IoT is expected to exceed to USD 1.6 billion, Elfrink said.

Internet of Things (IoT) is an evolving space as billions of devices are being connected on the go and consumers are looking for intelligence from connected devices, equipment and infrastructure.
The number of start-ups in the sector has shot up sharply from just 13 in 2013 to 189 this year. As of now, 300,000 people have jobs related to IoT.

Cisco, a leading global networking firm, has 250 public customers with thousands of connected devices deployed globally.
With more and more connectivity, Elfrink said, the area of concern is data security and education.
One area of action for IoT relates to education.
Cisco VP and General Manager services Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn stated there is an urgent need to overhaul the education system and re-skill people involved in networking.
"Another area of concern is security. No one is expected to connect devices in an open IP network. As a result, there is expected to be huge demand for cyber security analysts in the not too distant future," Beliveau-Dunn added.

At the Forum, Cisco also announced the expansion of its fog computing strategy along with the second phase of its IOx platform for industrial scale IoT deployments.