Wiliot is a

startup company A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...

developing

Internet of Things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

for

supply-chain In commerce, a supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products to customers through a distribution system. It refers to the network of organizations, people, activ ...

s and

asset management Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings ...

, founded in 2017 and based in

Caesarea Caesarea () ( he, קֵיסָרְיָה, ), ''Keysariya'' or ''Qesarya'', often simplified to Keisarya, and Qaysaria, is an affluent town in north-central Israel, which inherits its name and much of its territory from the ancient city of Caesare ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, with customer operations in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

, US. Wiliot develops battery-free printable

sensor A sensor is a device that produces an output signal for the purpose of sensing a physical phenomenon. In the broadest definition, a sensor is a device, module, machine, or subsystem that detects events or changes in its environment and sends ...

tags to monitor products like

groceries A grocery store (American English, AE), grocery shop (British English, BE) or simply grocery is a store that primarily retails a general range of food Product (business), products, which may be Fresh food, fresh or Food preservation, packaged ...

apparel Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel, and attire) are items worn on the body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin sheets of materials and natural ...

and

pharmaceuticals A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy (pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and rel ...

from their sources to stores and homes. The company's

business model A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-published, 2010 in economic, social, ...

is to sell the use of its

cloud software Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multip ...

History

Wiliot was founded in 2017 by Tal Tamir, Yaron Elboim, and Alon Yehezkely, following the sales of their previous startup

Wilocity Wilocity was a fabless semiconductor company based in California founded in 2007 developing 60 GHz multi-gigabit wireless chipsets for both the mobile computing platform and peripheral markets. Wilocity was founded in March 2007 by executiv ...

Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...

in 2014. In 2019, Williot closed a $30 million

series B A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...

round of funding from

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

Avery Dennison Avery Dennison Corporation is a multinational manufacturer and distributor of pressure-sensitive adhesive materials (such as self-adhesive labels), apparel branding labels and tags, RFID inlays, and specialty medical products. The company is ...

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

and its previous

series A A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

investors

Norwest Venture Partners Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, ...

, 83North Venture Capital, Grove Ventures,

Qualcomm Ventures Qualcomm Ventures is the investment arm of Qualcomm Incorporated. Founded in 2000, Qualcomm Ventures is a corporate venture capital fund with 140+ active portfolio companies. Investing in startups targeting the wireless ecosystem, the group focuse ...

, and M Ventures. Other early investors include

PepsiCo PepsiCo, Inc. is an American multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation headquartered in Harrison, New York, in the hamlet of Purchase. PepsiCo's business encompasses all aspects of the food and beverage market. It oversees the manuf ...

, NTT Docomo Ventures, and Vintage Investment Partners. In 2021 Wiliot raised $200 million in a

series C A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...

funding round lead by

SoftBank Vision Fund The SoftBank Vision Fund is a venture capital fund founded in 2017 that is part of the SoftBank Group. With over $100 billion in capital, it is the world's largest technology-focused investment fund. In 2019, SoftBank Vision Fund 2 was founded. T ...

2 and backed by all previous investors.

Technology

Wiliot’s tags, called '' IoT Pixels'', are a

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...

-sized

printed Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

that powers itself by harvesting the energy from surrounding

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

cellular Cellular may refer to: *Cellular automaton, a model in discrete mathematics * Cell biology, the evaluation of cells work and more * ''Cellular'' (film), a 2004 movie *Cellular frequencies, assigned to networks operating in cellular RF bands *Cell ...

and

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

radio signal Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, typically with frequencies of 300 gigahertz (GHz) and below. At 300 GHz, the corresponding wavelength is 1 mm (shor ...

s. The IoT Pixel tags have sensors for temperature, fill level, motion, location changes, humidity, and proximity. The tags cost less than 10 cents a piece. The IoT Pixel includes an ARM Cortex-M0+

processor core A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and ...

Bluetooth Low Energy Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE, colloquially BLE, formerly marketed as Bluetooth Smart) is a wireless personal area network technology designed and marketed by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) aimed at novel applications in ...

connectivity, 1 kB of

non-volatile memory Non-volatile memory (NVM) or non-volatile storage is a type of computer memory that can retain stored information even after power is removed. In contrast, volatile memory needs constant power in order to retain data. Non-volatile memory typic ...

, and

antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...

s for Bluetooth and

energy harvesting Energy harvesting (EH, also known as power harvesting or energy scavenging or ambient power) is the process by which energy is derived from external sources (e.g., solar power, thermal energy, wind energy, salinity gradients, and kinetic energ ...

Dual-band In telecommunications, a multi-band device (including (2) dual-band, (3) tri-band, (4) quad-band and (5) penta-band devices) is a communication device (especially a mobile phone) that supports multiple radio frequency bands. All devices which ha ...

models include connectivity in the

ISM bands ISM or Ism may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Incredible Shrinking Man'', a film * ''ISM'' (album), a 2012 album by Norwegian electronic music producer Savant * ''Ism'' (film), a 2016 Indian Telugu-language action film starring Nandamuri K ...

. In June 2022, Wiliot launched a

business card Business cards are cards bearing business information about a company or individual. They are shared during formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. A business card typically includes the giver's name, company or business aff ...

-sized battery-assisted version of the IoT Pixel providing continuous connectivity. Data from the sensors is fed into a Wiliot

Cloud server A virtual private server (VPS) is a virtual machine sold as a service by an Internet hosting service. The virtual dedicated server (VDS) also has a similar meaning. A virtual private server runs its own copy of an operating system (OS), and cus ...

, where

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing c ...

help its customers make decisions through a

software as a service Software as a service (SaaS ) is a software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software. SaaS is con ...

subscription. 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.

Applications

Wiliot’s tags are designed for use in the many

crate A crate is a large shipping container, often made of wood, typically used to transport or store large, heavy items. Steel and aluminium crates are also used. Specialized crates were designed for specific products, and were often made to be reusa ...

s that agriculture shippers use to get their products to markets. The tags can provide information about the safety of the journey and the condition of perishable goods, to better manage inventory and reduce waste. Its first large public customer was Israeli

supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. This kind of store is larger and has a wider selection than earli ...

chain

Shufersal Shufersal ( he, שופרסל), formerly Super-Sol in English and Shufra-Sal in Hebrew, commonly known as Super-sal, is the largest supermarket chain in Israel, with a 20% market share (as of 2018). The company, which was established in 1958, was ...

in June, 2022. 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. The company hopes to extend more broadly to sectors like pharmaceuticals and apparel Their tags can sense when a

consumable Consumables (also known as consumable goods, non-durable goods, or soft goods) are goods that are intended to be consumed. People have, for example, always consumed food and water. Consumables are in contrast to durable goods. Disposable products ...

is nearing end of life, or when a non-perishable consumable is almost used up, or how many washings a garment has been given.

Recognition

The industry recognition received by Wiliot include: * Winner of the 2019

CableLabs Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. (CableLabs) is a nonprofit corporation promoting innovation as a research and development lab founded in 1988 by American cable operators. System operators from around the world are eligible to be members. Th ...

Innovation Showcase * Winner of the

FDA The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a federal agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the control and supervision of food ...

’s Low- or No-Cost Food Traceability Challenge 2021 *

Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan is an American business consulting firm. It offers market research and analysis, growth strategy consulting, and corporate training. It has about 45 offices in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe; the principal office is in San ...

’s 2022 North American Battery-free Bluetooth Low Energy Tag Technology Innovation Leadership Award * Frost & Sullivan’s 2022 European Passive BLE-based IoT Solutions Customer Value Leadership Award * 2022

SXSW South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Te ...

Innovation Awards Finalist in the Smart Cities, Transportation & Delivery category

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://wiliot.com
Wiliot: Mr. Beacon podcast
2017 establishments in Israel Cloud applications Companies of Israel Internet of things companies Israeli companies established in 2017 Supply chain software companies Wireless sensor network