Press release – Ghent, Belgium, 6 October 2020 – Sensolus, provider of IoT (Internet of Things)-based asset tracking solutions, has closed a financing round of EUR 3.5 Million. The Belgian firm enables companies to track non-powered assets in supply chains and industrial manufacturing, operating in various industries in more than 15 countries. The financing round is led by btov Partners’ Industrial Technologies Fund in addition to existing investors Annie Vereecken, Capricorn ICT Arkiv and Quest for Growth. The funding will further accelerate the company’s international growth and help realizing its product roadmap.
Logistics and supply chain processes depend on transport carriers such as pallets, boxes, containers, returnable transport packaging and trailers. Currently, most of those non-powered assets are not connected to the internet, resulting in lost and unused assets, stock shortages or under- and overcapacity. Sensolus solves these problems and provides a cost-effective end-to-end IoT solution to track these transport carriers in real-time and optimize the underlying process flows.
Connecting non-powered assets as a crucial step in the process
The solution consists of wireless trackers that are installed as simply as a sticker, last up to 7 years without charging and communicate with the internet in real-time without requiring any other infrastructure. These wireless trackers collect crucial location, activity and sensor data, which Sensolus combines with existing process data to generate supply chain metrics, to alert on anomalies and to detect patterns which can lead to actionable insights for optimizing processes. Multiple industry leaders (e.g. Airbus, Volvo, AB InBev, SUEZ, T.C.R.) rely on Sensolus’ technology to get real-time visibility in their daily operations and save substantial costs.
The capital is raised to accelerate Sensolus’ growth in its existing market segment and to open up new segments in Europe and US. Moreover, the company will expand its solution to connect more types of assets which are omnipresent in the global supply chain.
The digitization of processes in asset-intensive industries is the new normal
Kristoff Van Rattinghe, CEO and co-founder of Sensolus is happy about the investment: “It is great to welcome the international investor btov Partners with their Industrial Tech Fund. We are entering a new era of the connected supply chain, we will be connecting millions of non-powered assets in the years to come.”
Today, more than 100.000 non-powered assets are connected to the Sensolus SaaS (Software as a Service) platform. Van Rattinghe is confident that this is just the beginning: “IoT technology has become mature and sufficiently affordable to directly connect all new types of non-powered assets such as boxes and pallets, of which billions of units are rotating invisibly in our world. On the other hand, digitization of processes is a must for our customers to remain cost-effective and competitive in their market. We have exciting years ahead of us.”
Edge-cloud intelligence as key enabler
The interplay between cloud as well as edge intelligence on the tracker makes the Sensolus solution unique. It allows capturing and analyzing the behavior of many different assets in a reliable, energy-efficient way and in a wide variety of verticals Sensolus is active in. This cloud/edge combination makes the complex and broad nature of low-power asset tracking available as a plug-and-play solution. Therefore, it scales to tracking large fleets of assets without losing control of the operational risk.
Benedikt Kronberger, partner at btov’s Industrial Technology Fund says: “Sensolus’ diverse team possesses significant domain expertise and great technological knowhow in the fields of both hardware as well as software development. Sensolus’ offering, with its low overall total cost of ownership, a long battery life as well as superior analytics capabilities convinced us to join the strong existing investor consortium. Moreover, through its patented technology, the company is ideally positioned to further consolidate its position as a market leader in the fast-growing industrial IoT market for asset tracking and process optimization applications.”
Marc Lambrechts, board member at Sensolus and investment manager at Capricorn Partners says: “From the start, we have been charmed by the capabilities of the Sensolus team to deliver scalable, reliable and mission critical end-to-end solutions to top tier industrial clients. With this additional investment Sensolus will be able to expand further in the journey from collecting quality data to actionable insights.”
Sensolus is growing fast. Do you want to be part of this crazy ride?
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About btov partners
btov Partners, founded in 2000, is a European venture capital firm focusing on digital and industrial technologies. btov’s network of entrepreneurial private investors provides it with unique expertise and access to non-obvious investment themes and founders. The btov Industrial Technologies Fund focuses on hardware and software innovation with industrial use cases such as automation, logistics, robotics, data analytics, Industrial AI, additive manufacturing and quantum computing. The btov Digital Technologies Fund focuses on startups primarily in AI, fintech, SaaS and digital marketplaces. btov has seen waves of innovation like machine learning or fintech very early on and is one of the most successful backers of AI companies in Europe.
With offices in Berlin, Munich, St. Gallen and Luxembourg, the company manages assets of more than EUR 500 million. Its network of private investors consists of 250 experienced entrepreneurs and executives from all over Europe. The most well-known investments include Data Artisans, DeepL, Dyemansion, Effect Photonics, Finanzcheck, Immatics, ORCAM, Quanta, Raisin, SumUp and Volocopter. More information at https://btov.vc/industrial-tech-fund/
About Capricorn Partners
Capricorn Partners is an independent European manager of venture capital and equity funds, investing in innovative European companies with technology as competitive advantage. The investment team of Capricorn is composed of experienced investment managers with deep technology expertise and a broad industrial experience. Capricorn Partners is managing the venture capital funds Capricorn Digital Growth Fund, Capricorn Sustainable Chemistry Fund, Capricorn ICT Arkiv, Capricorn Health‐tech Fund and Capricorn Cleantech Fund. In addition, it is the management company of Quest for Growth, quoted on NYSE Euronext Brussels, and the investment manager of Quest Cleantech Fund and Quest+, sub‐funds of Quest Management SICAV, registered in Luxembourg. More information at https://capricorn.be/
About Sensolus
Sensolus is an industrial IoT company, founded in 2013 by four IoT enthusiasts. The company is built upon many years of expertise in telecom, low-power networks, wireless sensor design and cloud-based analysis. At the moment, the team counts thirty full-time employees. The solution Sensolus offers is plug and play. It’s designed to optimize supply chain and logistics processes in which non-powered assets play a crucial role. Sensolus offers visibility in business processes and gives its users actionable insights to save costs and optimize processes and services. They are active in different industries ranging from aerospace, automotive, logistics and waste management to other asset-intensive industries. More information at https://www.sensolus.com/
