July 1, 2021

Signify Acquires Connected Streetlight Leader

Company broadens its outdoor lighting platform to better serve smart cities

Signify has announced its acquisition of Telensa Holdings Ltd, a provider of wireless monitoring and control systems for smart cities. In the announcement, Signify explained that the acquisition “will enable Signify to service a broader group of customers, by making smart city infrastructure affordable to cities utilizing the unlicensed radio space.” Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Who is Telensa?
Telensa, headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom, makes wireless smart city control applications. The company was founded in 2005 and employs 58 people. Telensa revenues were approximately $15.2 million USD for the year ending March 2021.

According to smart cities researcher, Northeast Group, the majority of the Telensa’s projects are in its home market of the UK, but it is also active throughout Europe and has a growing presence in the US.

The company touts its Ultra Narrow Band (UNB) technology as a major differentiator. UNB is a type of Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) wireless network. Telensa states that other systems rely on complex mesh networks or costly cellular connections, while UNB provides simple deployment, low lifetime costs and decades of trouble-free operation.

U.S. Projects and Go-To-Market Plans
Telensa touts numerous U.S. projects including the City of Harrisburg, PA and nearly all of Georgia Power’s existing smart cities deployment. Georgia Power has also been a high-volume purchaser of Cooper Lighting Solutions' outdoor lighting products Galleon & Navion, which may provide opportunity for some immediate synergies.

Signify’s announcement does not detail how Telensa solutions will be deployed in the go-to-market plan. Signify sells professional lighting products through Cooper Lighting Solutions and Genlyte Solutions in the U.S. and Canada. The company sells streetlight solutions through C&I lighting representatives and Utility Market representatives for its various brands.

Cooper Lighting Solutions plans to conduct a conference call with its North American agents the week of July 23 to review the go-to-market structure and next steps with its agent partners.

Telensa will continue to sell its systems under its own brand name.

Market Leader
Multiple market research studies in 2019 and 2020 cited Telensa as the world’s top vendor of smart street lighting. Reports were published by Northeast Group and Berg Insight.

According to the November 2020 Northeast Group report, Telensa is the global market leader for connected streetlights, with nearly 2 million streetlight nodes/controls deployed as of the middle of 2020. For nodes/controls, Telensa is the leader both for deployed as of 2020 and also for projects deployed and announced.