IoT Companies: The Layers, and Which Ones Get Covered

"IoT company" describes businesses with almost nothing in common. A sensor manufacturer, a connectivity provider, a device management platform and an analytics vendor share a category label and rarely share a sales motion or a media landscape.

IoT companies are the businesses that build some part of the internet of things, from the sensors that take readings to the software that acts on them. Here's how I divide them into six layers for PR purposes, with a note on each layer's communications position, because that varies more than the technology does. The layers overlap, and vertical platforms and integrators work across all of them.

Key takeaways

• IoT companies fall into six layers: sensors and devices, connectivity, device management and edge infrastructure, analytics and applications, vertical platforms, and standards, security and integration services. They rarely share a sales motion or a media landscape.
• In my experience, press attention concentrates on sensors and analytics, and the middle layers get comparatively little, even where spending is growing quickly. IoT Analytics counted almost 18% growth in spending on wireless IoT connectivity services in 2024, and 22% on the cloud infrastructure underneath IoT deployments.
• For an IoT company that sells to one industry, in my experience that industry's trade press reaches the buyer better than general technology media, which is more competitive and which that buyer rarely reads.

1. Sensors and devices

Sensor and device companies make the physical layer of IoT: the hardware that measures something, such as environmental conditions, occupancy, vibration, flow or location.

Hardware is expensive to build and slow to iterate, and it produces something a photograph can show, which matters more than it sounds. This is the layer with the best access to mainstream and business press, because a physical object deployed in a real place is a story a general reader can follow.

Communications position: strongest visual and narrative material in the stack, and frequently underused because the companies default to specification-led messaging. The deployment photograph and the operator's account are the assets.

2. Connectivity

IoT connectivity companies supply the networks devices report over: cellular IoT, private 5G, LPWAN and satellite backhaul. The layer is increasingly commoditized, which in my view is its defining commercial fact. IoT Analytics, which tracks the market, wrote in February that as operations grow more autonomous, connectivity "becomes less visible in buying decisions and less important in general," while autonomy will likely raise buyers' expectations on uptime, coverage, latency, roaming, security and predictable cost.

Communications position: the hardest, in my experience. Differentiation lives in coverage, cost and reliability at scale, which matter a great deal to the buyer and rarely make a story on their own. The available angle is usually the deployment that wouldn't have been possible otherwise, told through the customer rather than the network.

3. Device management and edge infrastructure

Device management and edge companies handle provisioning, updates, security, fleet management and edge compute.

Communications position: technical press and industry trade, rarely mainstream. The strongest available story is security, because managing a fleet of devices in the field is a genuine risk surface that reporters cover seriously. In the EU it is now a reporting duty as well: the European Commission says that since September 11, 2026, manufacturers of products covered by the Cyber Resilience Act must report actively exploited vulnerabilities and severe incidents affecting those products.

4. Analytics and applications

Analytics and application companies are where sensor data becomes a decision: predictive maintenance, energy optimization, occupancy analytics, quality control.

Communications position: best access to outcome stories, which are the ones industrial buyers respond to. This layer can produce the before-and-after with a number, and it should be doing so continuously.

5. Vertical platforms

Vertical platform companies sell a full solution to one industry: agriculture, buildings, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare.

Communications position: the clearest of any layer, and in my experience the one with the most room to improve. These companies have a defined industry trade press, a defined buyer, and a defined outcome, and they frequently pitch general technology media instead, where they're one of many IoT stories and their buyer isn't reading.

There's an exception worth knowing. In 2016 we worked with a logistics startup that tracked shipping containers, and with no funding round or product launch to announce, reporters had little reason to write about it. So we zoomed out: one of the biggest industries in the world, barely touched in 30 years and still running on Rolodexes and paper, a company building something genuinely new, and well-known investors behind it. We put all of it in one pitch and let each reporter pick the angle they cared about. Several outlets wrote features, and one reporter almost used our subject line as his headline. General press can work for a vertical company, but only when the story is about the industry rather than the product.

6. Standards, security and integration services

This category includes standards bodies, IoT security vendors, auditors and systems integrators.

Communications position: low volume, high credibility. What these firms can add to a story is outside verification: a certification shows a product met a published standard, and an audit shows someone independent of the vendor examined it.

Why does coverage skip the middle of the stack?

In my experience, press attention concentrates at the two ends of the technical stack: sensors, because they're tangible, and analytics, because AI makes them topical. The middle layers get comparatively little coverage, even where spending is growing quickly. In IoT Analytics' count, hardware was the weakest part of enterprise IoT spending in 2024, while spending on wireless IoT connectivity services grew almost 18% and spending on the cloud infrastructure underneath IoT deployments grew 22%.

For companies in those middle layers the implication isn't that coverage is unavailable. It's that the story has to come from the customer's outcome rather than from the product, because the product is infrastructure and infrastructure is invisible by design. Explain what the number makes possible, and connect it to something the reporter already covers.

Where should IoT companies pitch?

The mistake I see across every layer is pitching the wrong press corps.

An agriculture IoT company belongs in agriculture trade press. A building systems company belongs in facilities and commercial real estate publications. A manufacturing platform belongs in manufacturing trade press. In my experience the buyer reads those closely and rarely reads general technology media, which is also more competitive and, for reaching that buyer, less useful. Start each pitch brief with the reporter's beat and why the story fits it, because a strong industry angle sent to the wrong beat is still a bad pitch.

We watched this across a decade with Arable, a field-sensing company. The mainstream coverage — TIME, Quartz, IEEE Spectrum, Bloomberg — mattered for credibility, fundraising and recruiting. The coverage that reached buyers was in the agriculture trade press, in publications most people in technology have never heard of, and in the year that produced the most coverage overall the majority of it came from those niche outlets.

Both kinds are worth having. Confusing which one does which job is how IoT companies end up with impressive clippings and no pipeline.

Common questions

What are IoT companies? IoT companies build some part of the internet of things, from the hardware that takes readings to the software that acts on them. They fall into six broad types: sensors and devices, connectivity, device management and edge infrastructure, analytics and applications, vertical platforms serving a single industry, and standards, security and integration services.

Which IoT companies get the most press coverage? In my experience, sensor and device makers, because physical products deployed in real places make accessible stories, and analytics companies, because the AI angle is topical. Connectivity and device management get comparatively little, in my experience.

Where should an IoT company focus its PR? Start with the trade press that covers its buyer's industry, whether that's agriculture, facilities or manufacturing. Mainstream coverage helps with credibility and fundraising; in my experience the industry trades are what the buyer reads closely.

Why is IoT connectivity hard to market? In my view, because buyers increasingly treat it as a commodity, and its real differences (coverage, cost, reliability at scale) rarely make a story on their own. The workable angle is usually a customer deployment that wouldn't otherwise have been possible.

Which IoT companies have the most untapped PR potential? In my experience, vertical platforms. They have a defined trade press, a defined buyer and a defined outcome, and the industry trade press is often the better first stop.

Sources

• Knud Lasse Lueth, State of enterprise IoT 2026: The shift from IoT to autonomous connected operations, IoT Analytics, February 4, 2026
• Raghav Kadian, State of enterprise IoT in 2025: Market recovery, AI integration, and upcoming regulations, IoT Analytics, April 8, 2025
• European Commission, Cyber Resilience Act: Reporting obligations, Shaping Europe's digital future (reporting obligations effective September 11, 2026)
• Billionaire Tom Steyer Bets on Weather Stations to Battle Climate, Bloomberg, July 25, 2022
• Tekla S. Perry, Silicon Valley Startup Arable Takes the Internet of Things Into the Wild, IEEE Spectrum, 2016

Salient PR works with connected hardware, sensing and industrial technology companies across agriculture, buildings and manufacturing. Spending figures come from IoT Analytics.