San Francisco based Life360 to acquire Tile Inc. for $205mn

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: San Francisco based Life360 has entered into a binding agreement to acquire Tile Inc. for a purchase price of up to $170 million plus up to $35 million in retention equity awards for Tile employees, representing total consideration of up to $205 million, a news release noted.

Founded in 2012 and based in San Mateo, California, Tile Inc. is the global leader in finding things and locates millions of unique items every day.

Leveraging its vast community that spans 195 countries, Tile’s cloud-based finding platform helps people find the things that matter to them most.

The combination of Life360, the leading family safety platform, and Tile Inc., the market leader in finding things, creates an integrated market leader in location solutions for all life stages, enabling a seamless experience for families that integrates people, pets and things.

Life360 will be the only vertically integrated, cross-platform solution of scale in the market and will be well-placed to take advantage of the growing location solutions category.

Life360 Co-Founder and CEO Chris Hulls said, “This is genuinely the most impactful deal in our company’s history, and along with our Jiobit acquisition from earlier this year, our vision of linking people, pets and things all in one place is now complete.

As some backstory, I met the company’s Co-Founders, Nick Evans and Mike Farley, back in 2014. We connected immediately because it was clear to us that we would either be working together or be competitors at some point in the future, as we both had what I’ll call the religious belief that location would be part of everything.

We had the platform of mobile phones covering people. They had the hardware device covering things. We almost joined the companies together many times in our history, and I have been close with Tile’s current CEO, CJ Prober, since he took the reins in 2018. So this is not an opportunistic deal that came about from our strategic review, but rather the acquisition I’ve been hoping to make for the better part of a decade”.

 Tile Inc. CEO, CJ Prober added, “This is a landmark day for Tile. This acquisition not only brings together two incredible teams and complementary missions and values, it paves the way for us to jointly build the world’s leading solutions for peace of mind and safety.

This is the next step in our journey, and I could not be more excited to continue leading our incredible team and to join the Life360 Board”.

Tile offers a range of Tile trackers that vary in size and specification and which can be attached to various products such as electronics, backpacks and keys. This is a key differentiator compared to competitor products, and a competitive advantage as customers can choose a Tile product to match their needs.

The Tile device is connected via Bluetooth to a free app that is iOS and Android compatible, providing choice to the customer depending on their mobile device, with the added functionality for Tile customers to opt-in for Siri, Google or Alexa assistance with their item location.

Tile customers can also choose to upgrade to a Premium Product subscription which offers a more robust finding experience, and includes features such as Smart Alerts, where Tile proactively notifies you when you’ve left your Tile behind, and Item Reimbursement, where Tile will reimburse you if you can’t find your lost items.

 In addition to offering a range of devices, Tile works with 34 partners and is embedded in over 50 partner products across audio, travel, wearables and PC categories. Tile’s technology is built into and is used to power the location technology in many of our favorite consumer brands including HP laptops, Fitbit wearables and Skullcandy headphones.

With the acquisition of Tile, Life360 will be the only vertically integrated, cross-platform solution of scale that brings people, pets and things together into a unified app.