| Wiliot | |
| Logo Alt: | Wiliot logotype |
| Type: | Private |
| Founded: | in Israel |
| Hq Location City: | Caesarea |
| Hq Location Country: | Israel |
| Area Served: | Worldwide |
| Industry: | Technology |
| Num Employees: | 130 |
| Num Employees Year: | 2022 |
Wiliot is a startup company developing Internet of Things technology for supply-chains and asset management,[1] founded in 2017 and based in Caesarea, Israel, with customer operations in San Diego, US.[2] [3]
Wiliot develops battery-free printable sensor tags to monitor products like groceries, apparel and pharmaceuticals from their sources to stores and homes.[4] The company's business model is to sell the use of its cloud software.[5]
Wiliot was founded in 2017 by Tal Tamir, Yaron Elboim, and Alon Yehezkely, following the sales of their previous startup Wilocity to Qualcomm in 2014.[6] [7]
In 2019, Williot closed a $30 million series B round of funding from Amazon, Avery Dennison, Samsung and its previous series A investors Norwest Venture Partners, 83North Venture Capital, Grove Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, and M Ventures.[8] Other early investors include PepsiCo, NTT Docomo Ventures, and Vintage Investment Partners.[7]
In 2021 Wiliot raised $200 million in a series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and backed by all previous investors.[7]
Wiliot's tags, called IoT Pixels, are a postage stamp-sized printed computer that powers itself by harvesting the energy from surrounding Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth radio signals.[7] The IoT Pixel tags have sensors for temperature, fill level, motion, location changes, humidity, and proximity.[9] The tags cost less than 10 cents a piece.[10]
The IoT Pixel includes an ARM Cortex-M0+ processor core, Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity, 1 kB of non-volatile memory, and antennas for Bluetooth and energy harvesting.[11] Dual-band models include connectivity in the ISM bands.[11]
In June 2022, Wiliot launched a business card-sized battery-assisted version of the IoT Pixel providing continuous connectivity.[12]
Data from the sensors is fed into a Wiliot Cloud server, where algorithms help its customers make decisions through a software as a service subscription.[7]
As of 2022, Wiliot is the assignee of 66 patents that relate to harvesting energy from very weak sources, running a computer element on tiny amounts of energy, producing a computer element in a thin, flexible form factor and the cloud services that enable sensing from such a system.[13]
Wiliot's tags are designed for use in the many crates that agriculture shippers use to get their products to markets.[4] The tags can provide information about the safety of the journey and the condition of perishable goods, to better manage inventory and reduce waste.[9] [7] Its first large public customer was Israeli supermarket chain Shufersal in June, 2022.[4] [14]
The has experimented with reducing food loss throughout the food supply chain from producers to stores and in consumers’ homes by visualizing product information using Wiliot's tags.[15]
The company hopes to extend more broadly to sectors like pharmaceuticals and apparel[4] Their tags can sense when a consumable is nearing end of life, or when a non-perishable consumable is almost used up, or how many washings a garment has been given.[9]
The industry recognition received by Wiliot include: