Smart city technologies rely on a variety of technologies to optimize urban living. Internet of Things (IoT) sensors allow for real-time data collection on everything from traffic patterns to energy usage. Big data analytics and machine learning algorithms analyze this data to optimize resource allocation and improve city services. Smart transportation systems, including electric and autonomous vehicles, reduce traffic congestion and improve mobility.
Renewable energy sources power city infrastructures and energy-efficient buildings to reduce overall energy usage. Further, blockchain technology increases transparency and security in city transactions. These technologies enable cities to be more efficient, sustainable, and livable, continuing to play a vital role in shaping the cities of the future. Let’s explore 20 smart city startups to watch in 2025!
This article was last updated in July 2024.
20 Top Smart City Startups to Watch in 2025
- Athena Smart Cities – Smart City Platform
- Qbii – Machine-to-Machine Economy
- N-Smart – Grid Reliability
- NTD Energy – Smart City Mobility
- Urban Smart – EV Usage Optimization
- Apricity Digital – Smart Communities
- DoorsVision – Sustainable Community Development
- Urban Hacks – Sustainable Living
- Cairovision – AI-driven Video Analytics
- Astreo – End-to-end Industrial IoT
- Smart City Factory – Edge Processing Solutions
- Citydata – Citizen Movement Analysis
- Smart City – AI-based Air Quality Management
- AustinGIS – Sensors & Alarms for Public Safety
- Kentyou – City Data Intelligence
- Waymap – Inclusive Navigation Guidance
- NavMobility – HD Transportation Planning Maps
- Sensate – Air & Water Quality Monitoring
- CM1 – Positioning Intelligence for Infrastructure
- DirtSat – Green Roofs
Global Startup Heat Map highlights 20 Top Smart City Startups to Watch in 2025
Through the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, which covers over 4 760 120+ startups & scaleups globally, we identified 1409 smart city startups. The Global Startup Heat Map below highlights the 20 smart city startups you should watch in 2025 as well as the geo-distribution of all 1409 startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research.
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Based on the heat map, we see high startup activity in Europe and the US, followed by India. These 20 hand-picked startups work on solutions ranging from public safety and citizen analytics to city intelligence and sustainability.
As the world’s largest resource for data on emerging companies, the SaaS platform enables you to identify relevant technologies and industry trends quickly & exhaustively. Based on the data from the platform, the top smart city innovation hubs are in London and New York City, followed by Singapore and Berlin. Barcelona rounds up the top 5 smart city startup hubs. The 10 hand-picked startups highlighted in this report are chosen from all over the world and develop solutions for air and water quality management, traffic and people analytics, and digital twins, among other novel solutions.
Explore 20 Smart City Startups to Watch (2025)
Athena SmartCities provides Smart City Platform
US startup Athena SmartCities creates solutions that aid in the evolution of urban areas into more effective communities. Its platform, AthenaCore, serves as a foundation for smart city integration, employing a combination of wired and wireless technologies to link urban elements. Athena SmartESG provides tools for assessing flood risk, using historical data and real-time monitoring for thorough flood management.
Athena AHOME tackles the issue of affordable housing with a digital platform that boosts community skills and financial accessibility. The Athena Smart Township Ecosystem Platform brings together various urban systems for sustainable development. The startup’s smart community platform, myLivin’, assists a significant number of households with resources for sustainable living. Lastly, its Smart Security System, which utilizes IoT and AI, contributes to the safety of urban environments.
Qbii enables Machine-to-Machine Economy
Japanese startup Qbii develops machine-to-machine solutions that contribute to the development of smart city infrastructures. This leads to more efficient communities and an enhanced quality of life through automation and digital improvements. Its offerings cover a range of areas including artificial intelligence for personalized assistant management, data protection with a focus on bio and device security.
Further, it includes finance solutions like smart city payments and decentralized finance (DeFi) for automated systems. The startup integrates Web3 payments within Industry 4.0 frameworks. Qbii’s approach highlights the importance of measurable impacts for focused improvements in critical areas.
N-Smart offers Grid Reliability
US startup N-Smart creates modular cloud platforms and mobile applications that facilitate IoT solutions, provided as a service for smart cities. Its products include Smart Poles for monitoring utilities, Smart Tools for tracking equipment, and Smart Inventory for managing supplies.
These solutions contribute to grid reliability through IoT-enabled fault detection and automated restoration. Further, the startup’s platform allows for smooth IoT asset and service management on a global scale. N-Smart promotes efficient urban infrastructure with a focus on minimizing downtime and enhancing living conditions.
NTD Energy innovates Smart City Mobility
Spanish startup NTD Energy develops electric vehicle platforms, with a focus on modular design for adaptability and practicality. Its products include STARK RW, FOLD RW, STARK MC, and FOLD MC. These platforms, which are flat and foldable, improve the use of urban space.
The startup also offers OMNISTEERING ROBOT WHEELS for improved maneuverability. With a focus on solutions that produce no emissions, NTD Energy contributes to sustainable mobility with systems that are scaled and tailored to a variety of applications.
Urban Smart optimizes EV Usage
Turkish startup UrbanSmart develops the URBANSMART APP, an application that improves the electric vehicle experience. It provides real-time data, personalized travel plans, and educational content.
The startup facilitates sustainable and economical travel, and makes the use and charging of electric vehicles more manageable. Further, the app acts as a community platform, offering support for mobile charging units. UrbanSmart also contributes to safety and sustainability by reducing travel time and CO2 emissions.
Apricity Digital builds Smart Communities
Indian startup Apricity Digital leverages AI and big data to create solutions for developing cities and communities. It offers a Citizen Participation app that involves citizens in city development. The startup’s Smart Community solution offers a data-driven and automated management system for townships, buildings, and localities. Further, Apricity Digital provides a Solid Waste Management (SWM) solution that covers processes from household waste collection to recycling.
DoorsVision develops Sustainable Communities
UAE startup DoorsVision provides a smart community platform that combines IoT, AI, cloud computing, big data, and other technologies to support urban and rural lifestyles. Its features include smart access control, visitor management, energy monitoring, and smart parking.
The platform encourages communication, collaboration, and data exchange between residents, businesses, and service providers. This increases the efficiency and sustainability of community services, including enhanced living conditions.
Urban Hacks supports Sustainable Living
Turkish startup Urban Hacks develops geo-enabled, AI-based digital solutions to improve urban environments. It offers Artifimapp, a web application that gathers location-aware data through deep learning from aerial and satellite imagery. Another product, Artificam, processes images and videos for in-depth urban analytics.
Further, Linked is a device management platform that allows for real-time IoT device monitoring. GISherlock boosts cybersecurity with AI-assisted vulnerability scanning in GIS applications. These solutions enhance living conditions through the use of spatial intelligence and technology integration.
Cairovision provides AI-driven Video Analytics
Indian startup Cairovision provides video analytics solutions leveraging AI to renewable energy, ports and logistics, smart and safe cities, hotels, and the retail sector. Its products, including SolarVision and CityVision, utilize analytics for solar power plants, urban traffic management, and safety improvements.
The startup also offers PortVision, an AI-driven video analytics solution for ports, Tejas4.0 for border security, and FaceFinder for criminal investigations. With a focus on tailored video analytics, Cairovision provides security, efficiency, and technological advancement to various sectors.
Astreo offers End-to-end Industrial IoT
Italian startup Astreo utilizes AI and IoT technologies to support urban infrastructure and services. Its solutions include smart lighting, waste management, and environmental monitoring, to enhance city efficiency and sustainability.
The startup incorporates advanced sensors and software to offer insights for urban planning and management. Astreo’s platform also facilitates predictive maintenance, which reduces operational expenses and extends the lifespan of city infrastructure.
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Smart City Factory develops Edge Processing Solutions
German startup Smart City Factory utilizes secure data communication and processing solutions for the development of smart cities. It offers Smart.lighting, a wireless and sensor-controlled luminaire management system to use light on demand for remote maintenance and energy savings. The startup also offers intelligent mobility solutions, such as Smart.parking, to increase the efficiency of current parking capacities through real-time detection of available spaces.
Additionally, the startup’s Smart.security platform detects and analyzes sound and video for public safety. Smart City Factory thus caters to city engineers for flexible monitoring and maintenance without using any local measures and hardware replacement.
Citydata delivers Citizen Movement Analysis
US-based startup Citydata utilizes big data and AI to collect census data and analyze patterns of the population. It offers solutions to monitor critical data in the cities, such as movement patterns and traffic monitoring as well as converts it into actionable insights. For example, its solution, CITYDASH, captures trillions of data points every month and connects to the knowledge graph API, CITY AI.
Its machine learning (ML) algorithms transform geospatial data into digital mobility replicas of smart cities. Citydata also offers another solution, CITYSIM, to perform ground traffic microsimulation and allows engineers to plan optimal routes for multi-modal trips.
Smart City uses AI-based Air Quality Management
Smart City is a New Zealand-based startup that leverages AI to improve public safety, energy efficiency, and overall quality of life. The startup uses smart devices to capture and report real-time city mobility data. It offers products like SmartBench, which provides free wifi and phone charging, and SmartWaste, a smart bin that controls odor and waste overflows.
The startup also provides transportation tracking solutions, SmartTraf and SmartTrack, for traffic management and analysis. Smart City caters to the construction sector and city engineers to eradicate inefficiencies and make vast improvements in the cities.
AustinGIS integrates Sensors & Alarms for Public Safety
US-based startup AustinGIS provides IoT and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) solutions to large enterprises and the public sector. It utilizes machine learning and computer vision for AI-based real-time decision-making and autonomous capabilities for the retail, energy, and transportation industries.
Additionally, the startup offers public safety services by integrating sensor-based outdoor-mounted HD cameras, motion sensors, and audible alarms for vehicle and crowd and analytics. AustinGIS thus allows communities and enterprises to track persons of interest (POIs) and improve public safety with weapon detection systems and preventive security strategies.
Kentyou provides City Data Intelligence
French startup Kentyou provides IoT interoperability to gather and monitor urban data. The startup’s edge-to-cloud digital twin platform, Eclipse SensiNact, integrates with existing infrastructure and provides innovators with advanced analytics. It utilizes machine learning to offer unified access to real-time and historical data with well-defined APIs and data structures.
Additionally, the startup offers a sensor-based smart city hypervisor, Kentyou Eye, that provides insights into transportation, municipal building infrastructures, and environment monitoring. As a result, Kentyou caters to city services like smart parking, urban planning, public transport, and energy management to predict evolutions and detect trends.
Waymap provides Inclusive Navigation Guidance
UK startup Waymap offers a navigation map for cities. The startup’s app guides users both indoors and outdoors. It leverages in-depth orientation and mobility surveys. The combination of sensor technologies and a community-based approach to urban framing offers maps up to 1m accuracy for pedestrians without any external signals.
NavMobility develops HD Transportation Planning Maps
NavMobility is a startup from Canada that provides digital infrastructure like LiDAR point cloud, HD maps, and location-based service (LBS) mainly for transportation planners. The startup’s platform features advanced sensor technology for localization and mapping of accurate position and traffic management data.
It applies geospatial AI techniques to develop HD maps that provide various road attributes to improve safety for mobility and also facilitate autonomous driving systems. NavMobility delivers a deeper understanding of road and driver behavior analytics and helps in real-time vehicle tracking and management.
Sensate provides Air & Water Quality Monitoring Solutions
Senstate is a startup from Bulgaria that offers an integrated platform for building and managing sensor networks to make informed decisions about smart city development. It features products like Urban Air Quality Station which allow real-time detection and localization of outdoor air pollution. The startup performs calculations and visualizations of the air quality index (AQI) and identifies the locations where air quality standards are above the limits.
Additionally, the startup’s Water Quality Station ensures continuous monitoring of water quality in rivers and water reservoirs and provides statistical information on the chemical or biological status of water resources. Senstate improves the environmental stability and efficiency of cities and infrastructure.
CM1 offers Positioning Intelligence for Infrastructure
German startup CM1 displays the infrastructural data of citizens digitally through hyper-accurate positioning in real-time. Its smart construction light uses a differential global navigation satellite system (GNSS) and transmits high-precision position and movement data to a secure platform.
The startup’s cloud-based web application features an AI-enabled location-independent management and control platform for monitoring individual construction site lights and infrastructure. CM1 serves construction companies and traffic safety specialists, as well as providers of navigation data and logistics, with digital and automatic monitoring tools.
DirtSat facilitates Green Roof Implementation
DirtSat is a US-based startup that enables the building of green roofs across cities and validates results through data and analytics. It identifies and ranks infrastructure for green roof viability and converts roof spaces into rooftop farms with an integrated analytics platform.
The startup provides rooftop insights that allow property owners to implement green roofs. It also integrates IoT sensors and satellite data to measure and monitor crop health, solar radiation, and the water table. DirtSat, in turn, offers deep insights into the microclimate effects and helps in planning efficient resource utilization for rooftop farms.
Discover All Emerging Smart City Startups
The 20 top smart city startups showcased in this report are only a small sample of all startups we identified through our data-driven startup scouting approach. Download our free Industry Innovation Reports for a broad overview of the industry or get in touch for quick & exhaustive research on the latest technologies & emerging solutions that will impact your company in 2025!
