Family Locator Life360 Buying Tile for $205 Million
Company Competing With Apple in Personal Tracking Market
JAVAD offers Triumph-LS Plus and Triumph 3 Latest-Generation Receiver. JAVAD GNSS is looking for new talent to join their team!
Family locator Life360 has announced that it plans to acquire tagging and tracking company Tile for $205 million in a deal that consolidates the companies’ location technology on one platform. The acquisition, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022, allows Life360 to compete with such companies as Apple, which launched a $29 AirTag lost item tracker this year.
Life360 says Tile, which is expected to keep its team intact and in place, will continue to operate with its own brand under the leadership of CEO CJ Prober, who will also join the Life360 Board of Directors.
“I have an enormous amount of respect for what the Tile team has built. They are the leader in the finding things category and have built a respected and trusted household name brand,” said Chris Hulls, Life360 CEO and co-founder, in a company blog post. “Tile is in nearly 30,000 retail stores, has established embedded partnerships with dozens of companies, sold more than 45 million Tiles and has over 440,000 total subscribers.”
In the blog, Hulls said that his company put the first location-sharing app on the market. “[W]e had triple digit growth rates after Apple entered our space,” he said.
A transaction this big indicates location and tracking isn’t just about GPS/GNSS-based systems, particularly for the consumer market. However, Life360 earlier this year acquired cellular and GPS location device maker Jiobit for $37 million, saying it wanted to expand to other tracking markets, including young children and pets.
Life360 says the acquisition will allow users to tap into Life360's mobile app, which features driving safety and location sharing, and leverage Tile's Bluetooth-enabled trackers.
Key Takeaways:
Life360 expects its network has 33 million smartphone users to grow by 10 times with the Tile acquisition.
The acquisition will accelerate both companies' international growth plans—allowing Life360 to have access to more than 27,000 brick and mortar stores where Tiles are sold (and 1 million third-party devices where Tile technology has been activated).
Increase Life360’s subscription base by 45 percent to 1.6 million users.
Credit Suisse and Code Advisors acted as Life360's joint financial advisers. DLA Piper and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP acted as Life360's legal advisers. Jefferies LLC served as financial advisor to Tile and Fenwick and West LLP served as Tile's legal adviser.
Contact: Kat Eller Murray, for Life360, (415) 684-8528, kat@roamcomms.com, life360.com.
Xona and StarNav To Develop PNT User Equipment
San Mateo, Calif.-based Xona Space Systems and StarNav have partnered to develop user equipment, based on Xona’s Pulsar service, that will provide produce resilient position, navigation, and timing (PNT) products for commercial and government end users.
Riverside, Calif.-based StarNav is developing PNT user equipment to leverage radio signals as a backup, or alternative, to GPS. These signals include terrestrial transmitted signals, such as cellular and television, and satellite transmitted signals, such as communication and internet.
As Location Business News reported last month, Xona has raised $8 million for its proposed independent low Earth orbit satellite navigation services. The new funding round will support Xona’s first orbital mission, scheduled for mid-2022, the company said. The company says that Pulsar also has 10 times better accuracy than legacy GNSS constellation. In addition, Xona says its satellite provides 100 times better interference mitigation than the legacy GNSS.
“StarNav sees tremendous value of including Xona’s PNT service features into our products,” said Joshua Morales, StarNav CEO, in a statement. “To this end, we are moving forward with developing and integrating a receiver to include Xona’s PNT service alongside our suite of signal of opportunity receivers. This will add PNT information redundancy, which intelligent systems require to operate safely and reliably.”
Contact: Xona Space Systems, www.xonaspace.com.
Australian Gen Z, Millenials Feel Differently About Post-Lockdown Commuting
A new study from HERE Technologies indicates that there are generational shifts arising as workers emerge from lockdowns to return to city offices. The study, conducted in Melbourne and Sydney, surveyed 1,200 Australian and Kiwi commuters’ commuting attitudes.
The study found that 43 percent of Australians aged 18-24 used to resent commuting, but no longer do. While in contrast almost the same portion (39 percent) of Australians aged between 35-44 are fed up with the long commute and are unwilling to accept wasted travel time to and from work.
Half of workers said they would reduce their days in the office to cut down wasted work-travel time, while almost a third (29 percent) said they would change jobs, according to the study. One in five (21 percent) commuters are even willing to switch career paths in pursuit of shorter commute times.
In contrast, only a fifth (19 percent) would consider moving house or changing modes of transport (21 percent) to cut travel times, while even less would mix transport modes (15 percent) like cycling to public transport. Gen Zs were the most willing to switch to multi-modal commutes with older Australians the least open to change, the study said.
“We are seeing a clear generational divide in commuter attitudes as the pandemic forced many workers to reassess their morning and evening routines,” said Daniel Antonello, HERE Technologies director and head of business for Oceania, in a statement. “Two thirds of millennials said they want to cut their commute to spend more time with family and friends, while just over half of Gen Z workers said they would use their saved commuting time catching up on sleep. It seems while many younger workers are happy to commute into the office to get their professional social fix, older workers are more reluctant to give up their precious family time and are more likely to change jobs than get back in the car or train.”
Contact: Camy Cheng, HERE Technologies, 65 9088 4127, Camy.cheng@here.com.
Other Location News:
News tip? Send them to kdennehy@driverlessreport.com. Go to www.locationbusinessnews.com for more news and an archive of stories.
✔ Boeing to Integrate Raytheon GPS on V-22 Osprey. “Boeing [BA] has received a $15.4 million contract from the US Navy to integrate Raytheon’s [RTX] Miniaturized Airborne Global Positioning System Receiver 2000 (MAGR-2000) into the V-22 Osprey aircraft.
🙂 TomTom Shares Rise 9 Percent After European Union Decision. TomTom [TOM2] closed 9.3 percent last week—after the European Union published rules specifying that cars must incorporate intelligent speed assistance that the company supplies, starting in 2022.
🛩 Walmart is getting closer to delivering cough drops 50 miles away by drone. “In partnership with California-based drone company Zipline, Walmart will begin using drones to transport items like cough medicine, thermometers, or other health products to its customers within a 50-mile radius of a store in Pea Ridge, Ark.—the first step of an operation it hopes will eventually make its products more widely accessible in the U.S.”
👏 XTEND Raises $20 Million Series A to Scale Production of Life-saving Drone Operating System. “XOS leverages state-of-the-art Augmented Reality & Artificial Intelligence technology and enables operators to immerse themselves in remote, high-risk, GPS-denied locations, allowing maximal effectiveness at a minimal risk.”
🚛 The First Truck Navigation App for Android Automotive Is Now Official. “It’s Sygic Truck Navigation, a software solution supposed to guide truck drivers to a defined destination by taking into account essential data, such as vehicle width, height, weight, and restrictions.”
👍 World’s First Bi-Rotor Ducted Drone Looks Like a Flying Donut Made for GPS-Denied Areas. “Cleo equipped the Dronut with a 3D LiDAR, a 4K camera, a global shutter camera for precise positioning, advanced algorithms, and LED headlights, making the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) reliable in GPS-denied areas.”
✔ Javad GNSS is looking for new talent to join their team.
✔ GTX Corp Reports Third Quarter 2021 Financial Results and Corporate Summary Update.
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Location Industry Briefs
Send your news releases to kdennehy@driverlessreport.com. Go to www.locationbusinessnews.com for more news and an archive of stories.
Trimble Ventures Invests in Monarch Tractor
Trimble’s [TRMB] venture capital fund has announced its investment in Monarch Tractor, maker of an autonomous compact smart tractor platform for sustainable farming. The VC fund, Trimble Ventures, launched in August with $200 million in funding, and will focus on early and growth-stage companies in the agriculture, construction, geospatial and transportation industries.
Contact: Trimble Ventures, ventures.trimble.com.
Company Announces GNSS Correction Service Receivers for UAVs
Thalwil, Switzerland-based u-blox [UBXN] has announced the upgraded ZED-F9P high precision global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver module and the corresponding NEO-D9S and NEO-D9C GNSS correction data receivers. The receivers will be tailored for such markets as robotic lawnmowers, unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAV), and semi-automated or fully automated machinery.
The ZED-F9P-04B GNSS receiver is the first to support a secure u-blox SPARTN GNSS correction data format. It also connects two new GNSS correction service receiver modules that stream correction data from communication satellites, the company said.
The u-blox NEO-D9S will initially cover European and U.S. markets before rolling out to worldwide markets. Meanwhile, the u-blox NEO-D9C will cover Japan. The company said first samples of these products are now available.
Contact: Natacha Seitz, u-blox, 41 76 436 0788, natacha.seitz@u-blox.com, www-blox.com.
Epicor to Integrate Geotab Telematics Platform
Enterprise software manufacturer Epicor has announced partnerships with Geotab and Buildxact, who will integrate products into the company’s BisTrack platform. Geotab’s telematics platform and fleet management platform will optimize route and dispatch, the company said.
Contact: Epicor Software, (612) 702-2182, aaron.masterson@epicor.com, www.epicor.com.
Ferguson Waterworks Partners with Trimble
Trimble [TRMB) and Ferguson Waterworks have partnered to bring Trimble’s digital water solutions to Ferguson’s municipal and utility customers at more than 1,600 locations. Trimble offers management and digitization of utility infrastructure systems products, including IoT remote water monitoring devices, the company said.
Ferguson customers will also have access to Trimble's handheld GNSS receivers along with Cityworks asset management software, the company said.
Contact: Trimble, www.trimble.com.
Pozyx Announces Location-Aware Trigger Functionality
Pozyx, which provides real-time location systems based on UWB (ultra-wideband) technology, has announced the Trigger functionality in its 2021.3 product release. Triggers generates events that launch whenever a condition, based on the location awareness of assets, is fulfilled and converts these into automatically generated actions such as alerts, notifications, or status updates, the company said.
Triggers funnel and narrow down the data influx from RTLS to create a limited set of location data that are business-relevant and translate into events, the company said. The Triggers are launched from geo-location conditions of RTLS tracked assets, such as when a tagged asset enters, exits or remains in a specific fence (digitally geo-fenced area).
Contact: Elly Schietse, Pozyx, 32 479 761825, marketing@pozyx.io, www.pozyx.io/products/software/location-based-triggers.
Swift Navigation Named to Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech
Swift Navigation has been named to Fast Company’s inaugural Next Big Things in Tech list, grabbing an Honorable Mention award in the Smart Machines category. The company’s Starling positioning engine, and cloud-based corrections from Skylark precise positioning service, offers rail, mobile, industrial and robotics users PPP benefits, the company said.
Contact: Swift Navigation, press@swiftnav.com, www.swiftnav.com.
Advantage GPS Launches Revo 2.0 Wireless Tracking Devices
Advantage GPS has launched Revo 2.0, a family of self-powered wireless tracking devices with smart battery technology and power management tools. Advantage, which first launched wireless tracking devices in 2019, has amassed and aggregated data from tens of thousands of deployments and hundreds of millions of device interactions, the company said.
Advantage engineers developed power management technology and added tools to provide the client with better communication with and control over the device, the company said. The technology allows for the platform to monitor GPS device health and report potential problems, the company said.
Contact: Corinna Tutor, Advantage GPS, (949) 422-7103, ctutor@proconanalytics.com.
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