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Executive Summary: IoT Market Outlook 2026

  • Industry Growth Overview: The IoT industry expands at a 4.88% annual growth rate, with 10.1K+ startups within a total ecosystem of 94 040+ companies.
  • Manpower & Employment Growth: The global IoT workforce includes over 7.6 million employees, with 2.4K new hires added in the last year.
  • Patents: More than 257.3K patents related to IoT technologies have been filed, with 97.2K applicants contributing to this innovation pipeline.
  • Global Footprint: Key national hubs include India, the USA, the UK, Germany, and Italy. Leading city hubs, like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Dubai, and London, serve as dense clusters of development, deployment, and research.
  • Investment Landscape: The IoT sector has closed 44.9K+ funding rounds, with an average investment value of USD 44.6 million per round.
  • Top Investors: The top global investors have deployed more than USD 20.9 billion into IoT companies. Leading contributors include the European Investment Bank (USD 5B), SoftBank (USD 3.1B), and Tencent (USD 2.3B).
  • Startup Ecosystem: Five innovative startups include Hermes and Soteria (subsurface structural monitoring), iYo-T Technologies (remote aquaculture sensing), Anedya (IoT cloud infrastructure), Enfarm (soil nutrient intelligence), and Hydrotwin (underwater acoustic monitoring).

 

 

Methodology: How we created this IoT Report

This report is based on proprietary data from our AI-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, which tracks 9 million global companies, 20K+ technologies and trends, as well as 150M patents, news articles, and market reports.

This data includes detailed firmographic insights into approximately 9 million startups, scaleups, and tech companies. Leveraging this exhaustive database, we provide actionable insights for startup scouting, trend discovery, and technology landscaping.

For this report, we focused on the evolution of IoT over the past 5 years, utilizing our platform’s trend intelligence feature. Key data points analyzed include:

  • Total Companies working in the sector
  • News Coverage and Annual Growth
  • Market Maturity and Patents
  • Global Search Volume & Growth
  • Funding Activity and Top Countries
  • Subtrends within IoT

Our data is refreshed regularly, enabling trend comparisons for deeper insights into their relative impact and importance.

Additionally, we reviewed trusted external resources to supplement our findings with broader market data and predictions, ensuring a reliable and comprehensive overview of the IoT market.

What Data is used to create this Internet of Things Industry Report?

Based on data provided by the StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, we observe that the IoT market stands out in the following categories relative to the 20K+ technologies and trends we track.

These categories provide a comprehensive overview of the market’s key metrics and inform the future direction of the market.

  • News Coverage & Publications: The IoT sector maintains a strong media presence, with more than 10 510 publications covering the industry in the last year.
  • Funding Rounds: About 44.9K funding rounds documented in our database.
  • Manpower: The industry employs over 7.6 million people globally, adding more than 2.4K new workers in just the last year.
  • Patents: More than 257.3K patents linked to IoT technologies filed.
  • Yearly Global Search Growth: Global interest accelerates, with the sector experiencing a 50.79% annual increase in worldwide search volume.

Explore the Data-driven IoT Market Report for 2026

The IoT industry demonstrates both scale and steady expansion across key indicators. StartUs Insights Discovery Platform’s database captures 10 100+ startups within a broader ecosystem of 94 040+ companies.

The industry grows at an annual rate of 4.88%, supported by a substantial innovation base of 257.3K patents. It also sustains a sizable global workforce of 7.6 million people, with 2.4K new employees added in the last year.

Geographically, activity concentrates around India, the USA, the UK, Germany, and Italy, while Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Dubai, and London emerge as the top city clusters shaping the world’s IoT innovation landscape.

A Snapshot of the Global IoT Market

The industry is expected to grow from USD 76.97 billion in 2025 to USD 356.23 billion by 2034, at a CAGR of 18.56% from 2025 to 2034.

 

 

The IoT sector expands at a steady pace as our dataset records a 4.88% yearly industry growth rate. This momentum is reinforced by an entrepreneurial base, with 10.1K startups actively building solutions across hardware, connectivity, platforms, and analytics.

Moreover, innovation intensity remains one of the industry’s key characteristics. About 97.2K unique applicants filed 257.3K+ patents. This highlights the R&D activity taking place across global markets in the sector.

 

Credit: LexisNexis

 

The 4G/5G declared patents are distributed across key cellular IoT standards. LTE-M and NB-IoT exhibit a balanced spread, with many patent families declared under both 4G and 5G. In contrast, LTE-Cat 1 filings are concentrated primarily in 4G, while vehicle-to-everything (V2X) declarations are predominantly associated with 5G.

Patent output is increasing, with a yearly growth rate of 18.41%. Geographically, China leads with 169.3K patents, followed by the USA with 33.2K.

Explore the Funding Landscape of the IoT Market

The IoT funding landscape shows an active investment environment, with capital flowing consistently across stages. The average investment value of USD 44.6 million per round points to deals with companies building core IoT infrastructure, platforms, and applied solutions.

This is supported by a broad and diverse investor base of more than 31 300 investors participating in the sector that range from venture funds and corporates to private equity and strategic industry players.

In total, the industry has seen over 44.9K funding rounds closed with investments reaching more than 11 540 companies.

Who is Investing in the IoT Market?

The combined value invested by top investors exceeds USD 20.9 billion, showing concentrated capital deployment across major IoT innovators.

  • The European Investment Bank invested USD 5 billion across 26 companies.
  • SoftBank follows with USD 3.1 billion invested in 24 companies.
  • Tencent has allocated USD 2.3 billion to 30 companies.
  • GIC invested USD 2.1 billion across 14 companies.
  • Sequoia Capital backed 60 firms with a total of USD 1.6 billion.
  • Baidu also invested USD 1.6 billion across 9 companies.
  • BlackRock has deployed USD 1.4 billion into 11 companies.
  • Apollo Global invested USD 1.4 billion across 5 companies.
  • Tiger Global allocated USD 1.2 billion to 22 companies.
  • Goldman Sachs invested USD 1.2 billion in 18 companies.

Top IoT Innovations & Trends

Discover the emerging trends in the IoT market along with their firmographic details:

Edge Computing

Edge Computing remains one of the most significant domains, with 117 240+ companies operating in the space. It supports a global workforce of 7.5 million employees, including 2300 new hires added over the past year. The trend’s 6.29% annual growth rate reflects its rising importance in reducing latency, improving data sovereignty, and enabling real-time analytics.

Wearables

The wearables segment represents a large workforce footprint, with 129 950+ companies employing 9.4 million people. The addition of 2400 new employees showcases ongoing diversification beyond traditional consumer devices into health monitoring, enterprise productivity, and safety applications. The 1.03% yearly growth rate indicates continued adoption across sectors.

Industrial IoT (IIoT)

The IIoT domain remains a strong pillar for digital transformation in manufacturing, logistics, and energy. It comprises 43 910+ companies with 3.5 million employees, including 860+ workers added in the last year. Its 0.70% annual growth rate reflects stable but persistent investment as enterprises modernize operations, integrate sensor-driven automation, and strengthen predictive maintenance capabilities.

5 Top Examples from 10.1K+ Innovative IoT Startups

The five innovative IoT startups showcased below are picked based on data including the trend they operate within and their relevance, founding year, funding status, and more. Book a demo to find promising startups, emerging trends, or industry data specific to your company’s needs and objectives.

Hermes and Soteria enables Real-time Subsurface Monitoring

Australian startup Hermes and Soteria offers Overwatch, an IoT-enabled subsurface monitoring system. It provides continuous, real-time visibility into the structural health of tailings storage facilities.

The system deploys rugged underground probes equipped with 6 sensor types that track 9 indicators. These include seismic movement, positive and negative pore pressure, pH, salinity, soil moisture, and temperature. It then transmits this data through a self-powered surface network built for remote industrial environments.

The workflow begins with a geophysical subsurface assessment that identifies optimal probe locations, followed by installation through standard drilling methods and configuration of the cloud platform to establish operational thresholds, role-based access, and automated alerts.

Once active, the IoT network streams live measurements to a centralized dashboard. This allows operators to detect early shifts in geotechnical conditions, validate risk levels, and trigger intervention before instability escalates.

iYo-T Technologies builds a Remote Aquaculture Monitoring Device

Indian startup iYo-T Technologies develops an IoT-based remote aquaculture monitoring device that collects real-time measurements through rugged, wireless sensors. The measurements include pH, dissolved oxygen, ammonia, electrical conductivity (EC), temperature, humidity, and soil moisture.

These readings are available in a cloud dashboard that visualizes trends, alerts users to abnormal conditions, and supports data-driven decisions that improve crop performance, stabilize water quality, and reduce production costs. The platform also integrates into existing farm infrastructure, whether monitoring a single pond or a distributed network of sites, and supports custom configurations for industrial and agricultural projects.

By enabling remote access, automated analytics, and scalable deployments, iYo-T Technologies optimizes resource use, strengthens operational oversight, and achieves higher yields while minimizing waste.

Anedya offers Cloud-based Infrastructure-as-a-Service

Indian startup Anedya provides an IoT cloud platform that connects, manages, and analyzes data from distributed devices. It streamlines onboarding by enabling users to create device nodes, bind hardware through secure keys, and begin transmitting data.

The platform offers high-performance data aggregation APIs that compute averages, trends, and other metrics across large datasets in real time to support fast queries and efficient analysis without custom backend development.

Once the devices are connected, the platform handles ingestion, normalization, storage, and access control, and allows developers to retrieve telemetry, monitor fleets, and build applications through a clean API interface.

Enfarm provides Soil Nutrient Monitoring Solutions

Singaporean startup Enfarm leverages AI and IoT to offer real-time soil intelligence and tailored crop guidance solutions. Enfarm Transponder is a handheld device that wirelessly sends sensor readings to the companion mobile app for on-site monitoring. The company’s sensor collects soil and environmental data and transmits it to the transponder or gateway for processing.

A gateway acts as the communication bridge to receive sensor data and upload it to the cloud for remote monitoring. The sensor station is an integrated unit that gathers multi-point soil and environmental data and sends it to the gateway and cloud for visualization and farm management insights.

These devices continuously measure key soil parameters, including pH, N-P-K nutrients, temperature, moisture, and electrical conductivity. The readings are then transmitted to a mobile app or centralized dashboard to offer an instant picture of field conditions and enable precise fertilizer and irrigation decisions.

Hydrotwin simplifies Underwater Sound Monitoring

Portuguese startup Hydrotwin offers an IoT-enabled platform that monitors, analyzes, and interprets underwater acoustics in real time. For this, it combines connected hydrophone systems with edge computing, AI models, and cloud-based visualization tools.

Its sensors stream acoustic data to embedded processing units that classify sound sources and measure noise levels directly at the edge. This reduces latency and ensures that critical events are detected without relying on remote servers.

The platform then synchronizes processed data to the cloud. Here, users access a unified dashboard for viewing soundscape trends to review classified events and compare recordings across locations.

In addition to live monitoring, Hydrotwin supports post-processing of existing datasets through its analytical models. This enables researchers and operators to extract new insights from archived recordings.

Designed for flexible deployment, it integrates with a range of underwater hardware configurations and supports services such as model training, mooring design, sensor integration, and field maintenance.

Gain Comprehensive Insights into IoT Trends, Startups, and Technologies

The IoT sector showcases ongoing expansion, driven by widespread sensor adoption, connectivity advancements, and integration into enterprise operations. Companies develop platforms that unify hardware, data, and analytics. They focus on edge computing, predictive monitoring, and sector-specific IoT suites.

Investor activity reinforces this momentum by backing technologies that enhance efficiency, automation, and real-time intelligence. As IoT systems become more embedded across industries, these trajectories highlight growing opportunities for businesses.

Get in touch to explore 10.1K+ startups and scaleups, as well as all market trends impacting IoT companies.