Cumulocity

Cumulocity is an industrial IoT (IIoT) platform originally founded in Düsseldorf in 2010, acquired by German enterprise software group Software AG in 2017, and spun back out as an independent, founder-led company in January 2025 through a management buyout backed by European investors including Schroders Capital and Avedon. Unlike the hyperscale cloud giants, Cumulocity focuses exclusively on IIoT: device connectivity and management, edge-to-cloud data ingestion, streaming analytics via its Apama engine, and low-code application building for asset monitoring and predictive maintenance. It supports standard industrial protocols including OPC UA, MQTT and Modbus, and is designed to be vendor-neutral across telecom, manufacturing and utility customers who white-label or embed it into their own offerings. This is a useful example for readers of a broader industry story: after Google and IBM both shut down their general-purpose IoT cloud platforms in 2022–2023, specialist independent vendors such as Cumulocity have positioned themselves as more durable, IoT-only alternatives for enterprises wary of platform discontinuation risk. Its newly independent structure is itself notable in the IoT platform market narrative, illustrating the ongoing consolidation and reshuffling among IIoT vendors as larger software conglomerates periodically divest non-core assets.