Location tracking consolidation as Life360 acquires Tile for $205 million

Life360, which calls itself a ‘family safety platform’, is buying device tracking company Tile to give it a fuller location tracking offering.

On one level this is a fairly niche area. While technologies that enable you to track the location of devices are useful, it’s hard to imagine they represent an especially big or exciting market, especially given the relatively modest $205 million price tag. Having said that, any parent will confirm that the ability to see where their kids are via a smartphone or tag is very valuable and one that many would presumably be willing to pay for.

Life360 is one of the best known apps for that sort of thing, which seems to use wifi to track the approximate location of other smartphones linked via the app. Tile performs a similar function but via special tags, which you can attach to valuables or indeed people valuable to you. This acquisition, therefore, represents a fair bit of overlap, which the protagonists would have us believe creates a product set that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

“With the acquisition of Tile, we will now be able to provide a unique and all-encompassing solution for finding the people, pets and things that families care about most,” said Chris Hulls, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Office of Life360. “This acquisition marks a key step forward towards Life360 achieving its vision of being the world’s leading platform for safety and location services. We are thrilled to welcome Tile to the Life 360 family.”

“This is a great day for Tile, our customers, and our employees,” said CJ Prober, CEO of Tile. “This acquisition not only brings together two incredible teams with 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.”

An extra twist to the story is detailed by Reuters, which notes Tile has recently accused Apple of making it harder to pair its tags with iPhones at around the time Apple launched its own competing AirTags. If this acquisition ends up succeeding it represent evidence that there’s significant demand for third party alternatives to Apple and Google branded mobile products and services.