A start-up that raised $200 million in financing last year for a “sensing as a service” solution to add more value to Internet of Things deployments has hired a new chief product officer who may know a thing or two about guiding new products to market.
Manish Bansal, Amazon’s former director and general manager in the e-commerce giant’s Supply Chain Optimization Technology organization, was just named CPO of Wiliot, which develops thin, stamp-sized connected computers called Pixels that can sense a variety of environmental conditions and transmit that data to the cloud to help companies such as manufacturers understand as much as possible about not only where their products and assets are but also exactly what kind of condition they are in.
Amazon Web Services is actually one of many investors in Wiliot, and Bansal is not the only former Amazon executive now at Wiliot. Tony Small, who was named chief business officer of Wiliot last fall, also had worked at Amazon.
At Amazon Bansal was in charge of Amazon’s electronic data interchange platform, dropship business, and inbound supply chain product and technology teams. He managed more than 450 employees across 10 countries and was directly responsible for the planning and execution of Amazon’s global supply chain solutions. Previous to that, Bansal served in various other management positions within Amazon, most notably as a director and general manager of the Amazon Gift Cards business and Amazon Local U.K.
He joins Wiliot as the company is ramping up its product efforts, having last month launched the “open release” of its Wiliot Starter Kit, which contains IoT Pixel computers and small Bluetooth bridge devices that energize and read the IoT Pixel tags. The Pixels sense a range of physical and environment data, such as temperature, fill level, motion, location changes, humidity, and proximity, and transmit that data to the Wiliot Cloud via gateways, including smartphones and the Wiliot mobile app.
“Based on my experience at Amazon, I understand the potential Wiliot offers in equipping global supply chains with real-time transparency. New levels of efficiency will increase profitability, reduce waste, and bolster sustainability for companies across all markets. The industry is ready for large-scale disruption, and I’m thrilled to be a part of the team that will make this a reality.”
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