Supply chain scale-up in the spotlight: Sigfox

Sigfox

Sigfox was co-founded in 2010 by Ludovic Le Moan (CEO, pictured) and Christophe Fourtet (CSO) in France in anticipation of the continued growth of the Internet of Things (IoT). Their ambition, embodied in the slogan “Make Things Come Alive”, is to give a voice to the physical world around us and to allow the billions of objects connected to the IoT to play a role in economic and social development. Therefore, they built ‘0G’, a simple global, low-energy, low-power wide-area network (LP-WAN) dedicated to the IoT.

To streamline the supply chain, Sigfox gathers real-time information from the physical world to provide visibility of freight flows, inventory, production flows involving external players, and returnable assets (e.g. reusable industrial packaging), all supported by the IoT. Sigfox provides a single, cloud-based global connectivity service handling all asset tracking data.

Offering ‘out-of-the-box’ IoT connectivity, the Sigfox technology can be quickly and easily integrated with any type of supply chain optimization platform. According to the company, it can help customers achieve results such as a 30% reduction in operating expenditure, a 40% improvement in estimated time of arrival (ETA) accuracy and a 50% reduction in capital expenditure.

Global expansion Sigfox

So far, the owners have raised nearly €300 million from strategic and financial investors in Europe, the USA and Asia to support Sigfox’s global expansion. Today, the company is present in 65 countries and has 400 employees. In addition to supply chain & logistics and manufacturing, Sigfox is also targeting industries such as smart cities, utilities & energy, smart buildings, retail, agriculture, home & lifestyle and insurance. Its customer portfolio already includes the likes of Airbus, Michelin, Danone, LVMH and Total.