HVAC Field Service: Building The Jobsite of the Future
PeakSpan’s Thesis for XOi
PeakSpan first invested in XOi out of our second fund in July of 2019. Since that time, we have followed on with additional investment three times while seeing revenue explode by over 10x over this timespan. The business has upleveled its senior leadership team, rolled out several new products (including AI (!) products), hired several data scientists and has inked relationships with several large enterprise field service organizations, distributors, manufacturers (OEMs) and asset owners. We recently completed our first ever acquisition — a company called Specifx to supercharge our data and AI strategy while also opening up the market size dramatically with new ICPs (asset owners) and new buyer personas (sales, etc.)
We are excited to share that XOi has taken on a majority investment from KKR! We are thrilled to enter this next phase of growth alongside KKR and are excited to continue supporting the XOi management team in unlocking their vision for the jobsite of the future.
What does XOi do?
XOi is a jobsite technology platform that connects stakeholders from all ends of the field service ecosystem with the equipment they service. Technicians that use XOi in the field collect critical job site data, connect instantly with the answers they need, and provide the back office with data to capitalize on revenue-generating opportunities. XOi remains laser focused on the Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (“MEP”) space, with particular focus/dominance in the HVAC space. This deep vertical focus is where XOi has garnered its unparalleled data asset and opportunity, which in the “AI era” is candidly very exciting and represents a moat that can’t be replicated by any other software/workflow focused player in the field service space.
Is XOi a Field Service Management (“FSM”) Platform?
XOi is NOT an FSM, which is a more crowded arena. In the land of field service management, you may be privy to a company called ServiceTitan, who went public in December of 2024. XOi does not compete with ServiceTitan and the two solutions, strategies, visions, etc. could not be further apart. That said, given the wider knowledge/understanding of FSM’s and ServiceTitan in particular, we’ve put together a brief compare and contrast of these two solutions to drive home XOi’s distinct market position:
ServiceTitan is renowned for its emphasis on back-office efficiency, providing a comprehensive platform designed to streamline administrative tasks and enhance overall business operations. This includes features like payments, bill pay, CRM, dispatching, lead generation and contracts — all aimed at improving productivity and profitability for field service organizations. On the other hand, XOi is tailored specifically for technicians, focusing on optimizing the jobsite experience while also collecting key data in the field for later use by field service organizations, distributors, OEMs and asset owners. XOi’s platform connects stakeholders directly to equipment at the jobsite, offering tools that enhance the capabilities of technicians through surfacing service history, guided warrantee registration workflows, OEM-approved process workflows, ML-enhanced work documentation, “end-of-life” opportunity identification, service trend opportunities, compliance-driven replacements, upgrade opportunities, and AI-powered customer communication. This hands-on approach ensures that technicians have the resources they need to perform their tasks efficiently and effectively, ultimately leading to better service delivery and customer satisfaction. XOi’s unique value proposition lies in its ability to provide real-time visibility into asset performance, streamline workflows, and deliver actionable insights, making it a mission-critical platform for field service organizations, distributors, OEMs and asset owners. In summary, while ServiceTitan excels in back-office efficiency and business management, XOi stands out for its technician-centric and asset-centric approach, optimizing the jobsite experience and empowering field workers with advanced tools and insights to do their jobs better.
TLDR: XOi is a mile deep in the HVAC value chain whereas ServiceTitan is a mile wide in the field service management space.
PeakSpan’s Thesis for XOi
Our original investment thesis hinged on i) a widening skilled trades gap, 2) the mission criticality of the MEP vertical, 3) a dearth of like-for-like competitors serving the technician, 4) a multi-stakeholder value proposition and 5) the vertical AI opportunity. Famously, the founder of XOi always asks the below questions to help underscore the mission criticality of the MEP (mechanical, electrical, plumbing) space.
“Did you turn on a light today? Did you use AC or heat today? Did you use the bathroom today?” — Aaron Salow on XOi’s mission criticality
There is a reason PE is obsessed with HVAC services firms. They are highly profitable, re-occurring and cyclically resilient. We need air conditioning and units constantly need service. No matter the industry, XOi’s clients all obsess over the concept of “efficient uptime.” If the unit is down, XOi’s customer is losing money, their customer’s customer is losing money and the field service organization is losing credibility.
We saw this put to the test during COVID where XOi remained a mission-critical solution for field service organizations (who themselves remained a mission-critical market of service providers to the commercial real estate sector). Even when office attendance is down, the lights, plumbing, heating and air conditioning still need to work. This market continues to be stable and resilient.
Why are we excited for the future at XOi?
A popular software newsletter, Clouded Judgment, recently published their top prediction for 2025 (link). This prediction is shared by several notable software investors whom PeakSpan has spoken with and most importantly, PeakSpan as a firm vehemently believes in this thesis as well given our thematic investment strategy (which often takes on a vertical software tilt). This thesis hinges around vertical market AI opportunities and is summarized below:
In 2025, domain-specific AI models are poised to revolutionize industries by addressing specialized challenges with unparalleled precision. Unlike the generalized models of 2024, these models are trained on private, highly specialized datasets, enabling them to deeply understand complex contexts in fields like molecular biology, finance, energy, and aerospace. This shift highlights the limitations of generalized AI in handling niche problems and emphasizes the rise of enterprise AI, where companies will develop models tailored to their unique operations and data. The innovation lies not only in training on proprietary datasets but also in systems that continuously improve through real-time feedback. By bridging the gap between theoretical capability and real-world application, these models deliver accurate, actionable insights that generalized systems cannot achieve. The result is a transformative leap in efficiency, innovation, and problem-solving across industries.
We believe the $282 billion MEP industry is ripe for disruption and that XOi is centrally positioned to connect a fragmented ecosystem of technicians, assets, OEMs, distributors, asset owners and field service organizations. To date, XOi has:
- Connected ~68M people through the jobsite
- Collected 100M data points in the HVAC vertical alone
- Helped technicians complete 16M+ jobs
- Scanned 8.8M assets
- Serviced 455k locations
- Saved 2.1M minutes using AI
- Identified 751k end of life opportunities
And we’re just getting started! With this data moat in place, and through continued hyper focus on the HVAC vertical, it’s hard to envision anyone holding a candle to the impact XOi is able to drive and with continued advancements in AI, we predict XOi’s domain-specific AI model will run away with the show and revolutionize the HVAC industry.
Bonus Content from Our 2019 Investment Memo
