A French start-up named Insiteo and specializing in indoor
positioning has concluded the initial phase of a founding round valued at
several million Euros. Investment has been secured from venture capital firm
Emertec and a small group of private investors, including Anne-Sophie Pastel,
former CEO and co-founder of auFeminin.com, with the support of ACTA Finance.
“The increase in capital will enable us to equip our first clients, including a
major site in Paris attracted by the benefits of the Insiteo solution,” said
Arnaud Masson, President of Insiteo. “Ours is indeed a disruptive technology
able to deliver to most existing phones a perfect continuity of location
services in environments where GPS is unavailable, including commercial
centers, tradeshows, and industrial sites,” Mr. Masson continued.
Insiteo’s technology is an infrastructure-based solution that combines A-GPS,
WiFi, Bluetooth, and, in some cases, FM radio to provide indoor, sub three
meter positioning. “We’ve identified sites where our clients place a
sufficiently high value on being able to deliver location-based information
that they can justify a modest investment in site-specific infrastructure”,
explained Stuart Strickland, vice president at Insiteo. “Unlike many RTLS
systems – which, in some respects, this approach resembles – we do not rely
upon any customized user equipment, so anyone with a phone can essentially walk
in and participate”, he added.
The business model of the company is first to sell its location solution to the
owners or occupants of premises such as airports, museums, stadiums or
convention centers. Moving forward it seems the company could license its
intellectual property to other entities in the value chain such as handset
manufacturers, Wi-Fi hotspot suppliers, etc…
The Insiteo technology will be available to visitors of a in large public space
in Paris later this fall.
Monday September 28, 2009
Ludovic Privat
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