Fueled by $200mn series C, Wiliot adds leaders to spearhead growth of ‘sensing as a service’ platform
Tony Small of Wiliot
Wiliot, which aims to transform the Internet of Things (IoT) with tiny computers that turn trillions of everyday products into intelligent communication devices through its “Sensing as a Service” platform, has announced significant additions to its executive leadership team.
Tony Small, formerly of Amazon and Zillow Group, has been named chief business officer while Roee Zeiler, formerly of Blue Dot, Beamr and Ernst & Young, has been named chief financial officer.
The breadth of Small and Zeiler’s backgrounds parallels the scope of Wiliot’s mission to change the fundamental structures of industries ranging from pharmaceuticals to CPG to retail to industrial manufacturing.
The appointments come on the heels of Wiliot’s $200 million (€173.01 million) series C round, which will be used to continue to grow its product, engineering, sales, and marketing teams in the United States, Israel, and around the world.
“Wiliot’s Sensing as a Service platform and IoT Pixel technology are truly breakthrough, as our venture capital and customer communities have recognised,” says Tal Tamir, Wiliot CEO.
“That Tony and Roee have chosen to bring their extraordinary skills and deep experience to Wiliot is validating. They have led and scaled companies across hardware, software, and SaaS. They also share our commitment to creating a safer, more sustainable planet by creating an entirely new era of IoT where intelligence and connectivity are brought to trillions of products as they move through global supply chains.”
Wiliot chief business officer Tony Small brings to the company extensive product, technology, and sales expertise. Early in his career, Small spent more than five years at Amazon in management roles before moving to Zillow Group, where he rose to senior vice president, leading sales, sales operations and strategy for four business lines. At Zillow, Small was integral to the company’s $2.5 billion (€2.16 billion) acquisition of rival online real estate firm Trulia. Over eight years at Zillow, Small grew his team from three to 500 employees.
Roee Zeiler
“Wiliot is taking an unprecedented approach to overcoming the serious challenges that exist throughout legacy supply chains,” states Small. “Its Sensing as a Service platform will dramatically improve product traceability and safety, while reducing waste, promoting sustainability, and building deeper relationships between brands and consumers. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. I’m looking forward to applying my experience in tech, software, and SaaS to make a difference.”
Small was an undergraduate at Stanford University specialising in computer science, before earning his MBA there. Most recently, he was chief revenue officer for Convoy, a venture-backed online freight marketplace, and for Pro.com, founded by former Amazon executives to revolutionise home improvement.
Wiliot chief financial officer, Roee Zeiler spent eight years in Ernst & Young’s high-tech group, leading the financial management of both innovative start-ups and billion-dollar public companies. Over his career, Zeiler drove successful scaling for technology companies specialising in microprocessors, embedded solutions, and Software as a Service. Most recently he served as CFO of Blue Dot, a disruptive finance-based SaaS platform.
“When a company creates technology like Wiliot has technology that aims to fundamentally reinvent business models it’s important to be able to accelerate adoption throughout the C-suite, including my fellow CFOs,” Zeiler says. “I’ve always wanted to be part of a company that can impact the world and, at Wiliot, I now have that opportunity.”
The Wiliot Sensing as a Service platform comprises Wiliot IoT Pixels and the Wiliot Cloud. Wiliot IoT Pixels are tiny low-cost, self-powered tags that attach to any product or packaging to sense physical and environmental data that is then fed to the Wiliot Cloud, where machine learning algorithms translate those signals into actionable insights for businesses across a broad range of industries.
Wiliot transforms products that were off-line during their manufacturing, shipping and consumption journeys into online, real-time communication sources. This new reality is creating safer, more sustainable supply chains across retail, pharmaceutical, and food & beverage industries.
Concludes Tamir, “Tony and Roee will play a critical role in our success of Wiliot and that of our customers: Aligning planet, people, and profit so that Wiliot, our customers, their partners, and consumers everywhere benefit.”
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