Investment in TrackR, Inc.

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President & CEO, Toshiki Nakayama), has invested in TrackR, Inc. (headquartered in Santa Barbara, California; CEO, Chris Herbert), a U.S.-based start-up company that provides BLE*1 item tracking devices for location tracking.

Background
Recently, BLE item tracking devices and related services have become widely used, as many smartphones now support the technology. BLE is used for asset management and monitoring services, as well as to extend features of connected devices.

TrackR provides BLE item tracking devices and a related smart phone app. The application detects a BLE beacon signal emitted by the device, and users can locate personal items to which the item tracker is attached.

TrackR also provides the Crowd Locate network. By using the network, users can receive a notification when their lost personal items are found to be in the range of any of the other hundreds of thousands of TrackR app users. This network will work even better as more users join the TrackR community. TrackR already shipped over 5 million item trackers, so we can expect further expansion of use.

NTT DOCOMO already utilizes the TrackR item trackers for asset management solutions. NTTDOCOMO Ventures is expecting TrackR to contribute to creating new value in this field.

1: BLE
Bluetooth Low Energy is one of the Bluetooth specifications featuring low energy consumption.