Uwinloc

About Uwinloc

Uwinloc, founded in 2015 by Eric Cariou and Jan Mennekens, specialized in indoor asset tracking solutions for the industrial and logistics sectors. The company was established in Toulouse, France, with the objective of digitizing and simplifying equipment management and inventory processes in warehouses and storage areas. Its journey began within the Airbus Bizlab accelerator program, which provided a crucial initial development environment.

Eric Cariou, who served as CEO, brought extensive experience in the telecommunications and IoT sectors, having founded other startups and held management positions in various technology companies. His background in physics, electronics, and business administration, with international experience in the UK, China, and Switzerland, shaped the company's strategic focus on solving complex industrial challenges through technology. This experience was instrumental in developing Uwinloc's core offering.

The company's main product was a real-time locating system (RTLS) that featured batteryless, connected tags. This system was designed to address the high costs and maintenance associated with battery-powered tracking solutions. By harvesting energy from radio frequencies, Uwinloc's Ultra-Wideband (UWB) tags could operate without batteries, making them a more cost-effective and environmentally friendly option for tracking large volumes of assets. The system, which included the tags, wireless beacons, and visualization software, could pinpoint the location of items like tools, manufactured parts, and containers with centimeter-level precision in three dimensions. A key product, MahVis, utilized readers mounted on forklifts, which created a mobile infrastructure to track assets without the need for fixed readers throughout a facility.

Uwinloc targeted clients in manufacturing, logistics, retail, and healthcare, offering solutions for tool management, work-in-progress monitoring, and dynamic warehouse management. The business model focused on providing these IoT solutions to help companies reduce time spent searching for items, minimize losses, and optimize inventory and logistics flows, thereby offering a return on investment within 6 to 18 months. Over its operational years, the company raised a total of $6.65 million in funding over four rounds from investors including Elaia Partners, Ace Capital Partners, and the European Union. In January 2023, the business and assets of Uwinloc, including its 23 patents, were acquired by Paragon ID, a provider of identification solutions. Paragon ID intended to integrate Uwinloc's technology, particularly the MahVis system, into its own RTLS offerings to provide a battery-free, sustainable tracking solution.