It’s one thing to misplace an item at your home. But it is a much bigger problem when a company loses something in a massive warehouse or facility. And that happens more frequently than you might expect, says Atlanta-based entrepreneur Brian Arnberger.
“We found that people misplace shipping containers, tools, equipment, pallets, inventory…you name it. Things are lost all the time. And [companies are] spending anywhere from minutes to hours to days to find them,” Arnberger told Hypepotamus.
Those companies, often in retail, logistics, and industrial settings, lack crucial spatial intelligence insights. So alongside co-founder Jimmy Hester, Arnberger is on a mission to make it easier for businesses to track down assets across their facilities with startup Atheraxon.
The B2B hardware startup provides companies with indoor GPS radar systems. Those systems, which are just about the size of a shoebox, make it possible to “track and trace assets” with centimeter accuracy in real time even from two hundred meters away. Its hardware platform, called Theia, works particularly well to accurately track items in warehouses, manufacturing facilities, distribution centers, and port terminals.
Get To Know the Atheraxon Team
Arnberger is no stranger to the Atlanta startup scene. Previously a board member at Atlanta Technology Angels, Arnberger is a financial literacy mentor at Midtown accelerator ATDC. It was through his time at ATDC that he got connected with Georgia Tech’s Venture Lab, where he met his now co-founder Jimmy Hester. At the time, Hester was a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering and was working on spatial technologies. After seeing what he was working on, Arnberger believed the platform could help transform the logistics industry.
To build the early stages of the company, Atheraxon opted to go through the grant funding route. The team got checks from the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) and the National Science Foundation’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR). That has helped the Atheraxon team do customer discovery across the world and ultimately “de risk” the product before ultimately opening up angel funding rounds.
That route also helped keep Atheraxon’s cap table clean, something that Arnberger thinks will help attract the right investors down the road.
Building Hardware in a Software Town
Atheraxon is part of the ATDC Accelerate program. Being part of the ATDC community has been particularly valuable, Arnberger told Hypepotamus, since it gives the early-stage team access to a hardware-focused makerspace.
“We’re hardware folks in what I feel like is a software town,” he added. “To have a place where we can actually physically build things…that’s hard to find. The makerspace and the ATDC have really been a godsend for us.”
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Featured photo from Unsplash
