Alarm.com acquires OpenEye to expand commercial solutions

TYSONS, Va.—Alarm.com announced a majority-stake acquisition of OpenEye, a provider of cloud-managed video surveillance solutions for the commercial market. OpenEye is optimized for enterprise-level commercial customers requiring expansive video recording capabilities, in addition to remote viewing, administration and diagnostic reporting.

“OpenEye has consistently demonstrated that they are the unequivocal leader in the video-surveillance-as-a-service space and we are excited to help the team continue growing their business,” Steve Trundle, president and CEO of Alarm.com, said in the announcement. “OpenEye has a robust customer and partner list and our top priority is to ensure they all continue to experience great service. The addition of OpenEye will enhance the offerings available to Alarm.com partners in the commercial space. With the ongoing transition from traditional on-premise products to VSaaS, we're creating new value for subscribers and additional RMR opportunities for our partners.”

Alarm.com excited about the market for cloud-based video services, or Video-Surveillance-as-a-Service (VSaaS), which it says is expanding rapidly as legacy solutions shift to new cloud-based architectures. According to IHS Markit, the Video Surveillance Market in the Americas region was $4.4 billion in 2018. Market share for VSaaS is forecast to increase from 9 percent of total spending in 2018 to 15 percent by 2022.

Combined with the Alarm.com for Business offering, service providers partnered with Alarm.com now have a “best-in-class solution” to accommodate commercial accounts of any size, Alarm.com said, noting that OpenEye's intelligent cloud architecture efficiently distributes video and event data to maximize control for both onsite command center operators and remote administrators. The unique hybrid solution delivers the high-resolution long-term storage, low bandwidth consumption, and centralized cloud management that enterprise users demand.

“We're excited about this next step in our evolution as the leader in cloud-based VSaaS,” Rick Sheppard, CEO of OpenEye, said in the announcement. “Alarm.com is the platform of choice for thousands of service providers that demand innovation and exceptional customer service. Combining their wide array of partner tools and resources with our capabilities will provide our partners with solutions that are second-to-none.”

OpenEye was founded in 1999 and is currently utilized at over 14,000 business locations in the U.S. and Canada. With the acquisition, OpenEye will be a subsidiary of Alarm.com. The company will continue operations under the OpenEye brand and be led by the existing management team. OpenEye Web Services will remain an open cloud platform and the company remains committed to expanding its ecosystem of technology partners and integrated devices. Alarm.com intends to further invest in OpenEye's growth and expand its headquarters presence in Liberty Lake, Wash.

The combination of OpenEye and Alarm.com expertise will provide a “comprehensive suite of interactive cloud-based services spanning video, access control, intrusion and automation” for domestic and international commercial enterprises of all sizes, the companies said, in addition to their “well-established reputations for delivering world-class customer service” to their networks of service providers and integrators.