HOPU (HOP Ubiquitous), one of EIT Urban Mobility’s first equity startups, has been acquired by Libelium. With its Internet of Things (IoT) solutions for monitoring air quality, noise pollution, and meteorological parameters, HOPU makes a good match with Libelium, a leading company in the design and manufacturing of wireless sensor network devices to deliver reliable IoT, M2M and smart cities solutions. The high compatibility of both companies stands for a huge leap forward in their strategy to lead the IoT market, with the intention to float the company in an initial public offering.
Since its starting point in 2014, the Spanish venture HOPU has grown to a 40 staff company, working with over 100 cities and customers, and has more than 700 devices deployed in Europe. With the data provided by HOPU, cities get insights and suggestions on how to transform their urban spaces to create more sustainable living areas. For these reasons, EIT Urban Mobility decided to invest in HOPU in 2020. Over the years, HOPU has taken part in several of our programmes, like the Scale up programme in 2020 and Raptor in 2021, where they were the winning startup for the air quality challenge of the city of Sant Joan Despí, Spain.
HOPU is highly competitive in their sector and has positioned itself as a valuable collaborator for large partners such as Telefónica, Suez and Signify (Philips). Besides enriching Libelium’s technological portfolio and know-how on Smart Cities, Infrastructure and Sustainability, it gives the opportunity to HOPU to expand its market outside of Europe to Central and North America.
This successful transaction solidifies the commitment of EIT Urban Mobility towards urban mobility transformation powered by data and digitization.
