Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel recently joined Aeris employees to cut a ceremonial ribbon at the company’s new Chicago office at 435 N. LaSalle Street in River North.

Aeris, a pioneer and leader in the Internet of Things (IoT) industry, moved more than 40 employees into 18,132 square feet of office space. The company’s global headquarters is in Santa Clara, California.

The Chicago office houses portions of the company’s engineering, product management, sales, marketing, operations and customer support, finance and talent acquisition functions, as well as an innovation center showcasing the IoT products and services depended on by the company’s customers worldwide.

Originally constructed in 1906, historic 435 N. LaSalle Street is a 50,000-square-foot, five-story loft office building that was purchased in 2015 by an investment team including Chicago-based developer Elmdale Partners. The investment team is currently underway on a full redevelopment of the property that coincides with the build-out of Aeris’ offices on the 3rd and 4th floors.

IoT is the internetworking of physical devices, vehicles, buildings, and other items—embedded with electronics, software, sensors, actuators, and network connectivity that enable these objects to collect and exchange data. IoT is becoming crucial for business. Recent industry forecasts estimate nearly 5 billion connected devices will be utilized in the enterprise this year alone. A recent survey suggests that executives consider IoT initiatives to be increasingly valuable and important to their organizations, particularly when it comes to achieving greater operational efficiencies and gaining competitive advantages.

Aeris provides a complete solution – from connectivity to application platform – for M2M (machine-to-machine) and IoT programs.