Family-tracking app Life360 acquired Tile for $205 million

California-based Life360 is in the process of acquiring Tile in a deal valued at around $205 million USD (roughly $260 million CAD).

The acquisition — which likely comes as a result of growing competition in the Bluetooth tracker market from Apple and its AirTag — will see Tile CEO CJ Prober retain his position and join Life360’s board of directors.

Life360 is a family safety and tracking app that also recently acquired Jiobit, an item locating hardware startup that creates cellular-connected trackers for children and pets.

“This acquisition marks a key step forward towards Life360 achieving its vision of being the world’s leading platform for safety and location services,” said Chris Hulls, co-founder and CEO of Life360, in a statement.

Life360 says it views the acquisition as an opportunity to expand business in not the just ‘family-tracking’ market, but also for locating “people, pets and things they love all from one mobile platform.”

Big news: Tile is joining the @Life360 family! We’ll continue as our own brand, delivering the excellent experience our customers deserve. Lots of exciting things ahead! https://t.co/zJGcNiXW5U

— Tile (@TheTileApp) November 23, 2021

“We’ll be bundling Tile devices as part of our Membership plans, and Tile will offer Life360 Membership benefits to its customers. We’ll also start work on integrating our technologies so Tile devices, Jiobit wearables, and Life360 app customers will show up on a unified map — people, pets, and things all in one place,” said Hulls in a blog post.

Further, Life360’s already established 33 million smartphone users are expected to expand Tile’s network by 10x.

This comes soon after Prober announced that revenue from its line of Bluetooth tracking devices is up. Last month, Tile revealed its refreshed lineup, including new Mate, Sticker and Pro trackers.

Image credit: Life360

Source: Life360