Tile

01 / WHAT IT BUILT

What the company did

Tile was a San Mateo company founded in 2012 by Nick Evans and Mike Farley that pioneered consumer Bluetooth item trackers. Its small, inexpensive Bluetooth Low Energy tags attach to wallets, keys, suitcases and bikes, ringing from the companion app or showing their last-known location; a community 'Finding Network' lets nearby users anonymously relay a lost Tile's location — a model later copied by Apple's AirTag. Tile skipped Kickstarter for a self-hosted crowdfunding campaign in 2013 that raised $2.6M on a $20K goal, grew to 40M devices sold and 400K paying customers, embedded its tech in 50+ third-party devices, and raised $141M in total. In November 2021 location-sharing company Life360 announced it would acquire Tile for $205M, keeping it as a standalone brand under CEO CJ Prober.

03 / EVENT HISTORY

Events in the structured record

1. 2012
   Founded

   Nick Evans and Mike Farley found Tile in San Mateo, California, incubated out of mobile accelerator Tandem Capital.

2. 2013
   Self-hosted crowdfunding

   Instead of Kickstarter, Tile runs its crowdfunding on its own website via Selfstarter: in 34 days it raises $2.6M (goal: $20K) with 200,000 pre-sales, building a direct-sales muscle that shapes the company.

3. 2021
   Acquired by Life360 ($205M)

   On November 22, 2021 Life360 announces it will acquire Tile for $205M, expected to close in Q1 2022; Tile keeps its brand under CEO CJ Prober, and its Finding Network is expected to grow ~10x via Life360's 33M smartphone users.