While lost goods and machines can cost logistics and manufacturing businesses lots of money, tracking them more closely can also be a difficult and expensive task, according to Assetflo co-founder and CTO Elie Makhoul.
Makhoul’s company has built patented mesh network technology designed to address this problem. Assetflo’s internet-of-things (IoT)-based tracking system aims to help companies monitor and avoid misplacing assets, both indoors and outside, in a more cost-effective manner by leveraging existing hardware.
“We believe everything in the physical world should be searchable, should be located … Our mission is to make it viable.”
Elie Makhoul,
Assetflo
The Kitchener-Waterloo startup, which has already deployed its product with multiple undisclosed Fortune 500 customers, is now working to refine its tech and go-to-market strategy as it looks to bring its offering to more enterprise clients, with the help of $2 million USD (nearly $2.8 million CAD) in fresh seed financing, Makhoul announced today in an exclusive interview with BetaKit.
“We believe everything in the physical world should be searchable, should be located … Our mission is to make it viable,” Makhoul said.
Assetflo’s equity, all-primary seed round, which closed in August, was led by new investor GreenSky Ventures, a Toronto-based early-stage venture capital (VC) firm, with support from existing backers like Oakville fleet management tech company Geotab and Mega Innovation. Makhoul did not share Assetflo’s valuation. This seed round brings its total VC funding to approximately $3 million USD; Assetflo has also secured $1 million USD worth of grants.
Founded in 2019 by Makhoul and Noaman Makki, Assetflo sells software and hardware that helps clients track the location and condition of their assets. Using mesh networking, Assetflo draws data from its own sensors, as well as customers’ existing infrastructure, including routers deployed only for Wi-Fi coverage. Makhoul claims Assetflo’s algorithm can configure those hubs for IoT purposes, allowing clients to track their assets with less new hardware.
Assetflo’s platform can be used to monitor goods at fulfillment centres, equipment at industrial manufacturing facilities, and parcels for logistics businesses. For example, warehouse operators can use Assetflo to view the live locations of their pallets or forklifts on a 3D map.
Images courtesy Assetflo
While the Global Positioning System (GPS) offers the best means of outdoor tracking, its indoor mapping capabilities are more limited. Given this, hybrid or Real-time locating systems (RTLS) are typically used to map indoor environments. This can make monitoring objects moving from inside to outside buildings or vehicles—or vice versa—difficult.
Makhoul claims that Assetflo’s “adaptive RTLS”-based approach answers the question of “how do you leverage everything and allow it to work everywhere?” by using machine learning to determine which of RTLS, GPS, Bluetooth, or other forms of IoT connectivity make the most sense to use, when, and where.
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“The company’s platform addresses a clear need for accurate and cost-efficient asset tracking, and we look forward to supporting its next phase of growth,” GreenSky chief technologist and former Research in Motion chief information officer Valdis Martinsons said in a statement.
Makhoul said GreenSky’s technical expertise was part of what attracted Assetflo to the firm. As for the involvement of Geotab—which has become a profitable, global leader in vehicle tracking tech with reportedly more than $1 billion in annual revenue—the Assetflo CTO said that the company has made a point of supporting startups that expand its reach in other areas, like indoor asset monitoring. Today, Assetflo’s solution runs purely on Geotab.
“If you can do well in the Geotab ecosystem, then you have a path forward,” Makhoul said.
Assetflo’s current focus is on perfecting what he calls its “digital floor.” But Makhoul said the startup’s broader vision involves developing digital twins—or dynamic virtual replicas of those assets and their environments—to give clients even greater visibility to address cost-efficiency, productivity, compliance, and security challenges.
As Google, Apple, and other players continue to expand their indoor mapping capabilities, Assetflo sees potential to use its asset-tracking tech to build even better indoor views.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by CHUTTERSNAP.