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CIT GAP Funds invests in CargoSense

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economic-forecast-headerThe Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) announced this week that its CIT GAP Funds closed an investment in CargoSense, a Reston-based startup offering a big data and analytics product to healthcare logistics providers. New Dominion Angels, a Virginia-based angel investment group, invested alongside CIT.

Every year more than 80 million climate-sensitive pharmaceutical shipments are made, and the pharmaceutical industry incurs $35 billion in losses resulting from damage that occurs during shipping. CargoSense’s technology helps decrease this loss by collecting data such as light, temperature, pressure, humidity, shock and tilt using advanced sensor technology, and then providing intuitive data analysis to pharmaceutical logistics groups. Clients use the insights from CargoSense to reduce loss and ensure compliance for sensitive shipments.

CIT President and CEO Pete Jobse said, “CargoSense uses data analytics to reduce waste in the pharmaceutical supply chain, meeting a need to optimize the supply chain and save money. Innovative solutions like this one are what we look for when making CIT GAP Funds investments.”

CargoSense was founded in 2012 by an impressive management team led by the founder of InfoEther and serial entrepreneur, Rich Kilmer. Kilmer is joined on the executive team by other notable InfoEther alums and successful career entrepreneurs.

CargoSense CEO Rich Kilmer said, “We will use the investment from CIT GAP Funds to extend key product features, including our reporting and analytics. The investment will also help us grow sales within our existing customer segments. While we are initially focused on life sciences, we are also actively pursuing partnerships in food, restaurants, grocery chains and other market segments with sensitive supply chains.”

CIT GAP Funds is a family of seed- and early-stage investment funds placing near-equity and equity investments in Virginia-based high-growth technology, life science and clean technology companies.

Tom Weithman, CIT vice president and GAP Funds Managing Director, said, “Companies like CargoSense provide valuable, innovative solutions, but often find it difficult to obtain the early-stage funding they need to grow their business. CIT GAP Funds help plug that funding gap, giving Virginia startups the funding they need to contribute to the innovation economy.”

Since its 2005 launch, CIT GAP Funds has invested in over 100 companies across the Commonwealth of Virginia, deploying more than $13 million of public funds and attracting over $200 million more in private funding.

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