While much of the world has shut down, Atlanta-based LocatorX, which provides tracking technologies for goods in transit, has experienced an eventful few weeks.
In early April, it capped off a year of fundraising at $6.6 million and announced that former United Parcel Service Inc. CFO Kurt Kuehn would join its board of directors.
A week later, the growing tech firm announced that it would make its solutions available to manufacturers and hospitals moving critical medical devices such as ventilators during the COVID-19 crisis.
The LocatorX Medical Device Registry could be used as a central database allowing surplus equipment like ventilators to be transferred responsibly to hotspots around the country.
To make it happen, LocatorX will send tracking labels with its proprietary chips to hospitals with existing devices or manufacturers churning out new ones. Once they’re shipped the equipment, doctors and nurses will be able to see a device’s history and use smartphones to scan QR codes to indicate when it is being deployed. That action will render it unavailable in the publicly viewable database.
It’s a new use case for LocatorX, which combines a secure software platform with real-time tracking of individual items to help brands combat counterfeiting, theft and diversion, while enabling enhanced accountability and engagement with end customers.
Mr. Kuehn, who was added to the board April 16, was integral to UPS’s international expansion, overseeing a $1 billion investment into its European operations and serving as a company champion for trans-Atlantic trade. He also worked on UPS’s massive acquisition bid for TNT Express, the Dutch delivery company, which the European Union squelched over anti-trust concerns.
“Kurt Kuehn is a phenomenal addition to our board of directors,” said Scott Fletcher, president and CEO, LocatorX, in a news release. “His unparalleled supply chain expertise and tenure as a leader at UPS will have a huge impact on the work we’re doing at LocatorX.”
LocatorX was founded in 2014 and developed a patented “Global Resource Tracker” by licensing research out of Oxford University, where nanomaterials experts had figured out how to make a miniature sub-atomic clock by attaching resonators to clusters of spherical carbon atoms. The LocatorX chips are embedded into tags or labels, enabling tracking of items globally.
Atlanta International School is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta's Technology Channel. Subscribe here for monthly Tech newsletters.
