ChillTravel Has Luggage Tracking Ideas Under Wraps
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APEX Insight: Seventy-six percent of passengers are interested in receiving baggage location status updates to their smartphones throughout their journey, according to SITA’s 2017 Baggage Report. Uruguayan startup ChillTravel is launching two cool products that will allow travelers to keep track of their checked luggage.
There has been a 67 percent cut in mishandled bags over the last decade according to SITA, thanks to ever-improving baggage tracking infrastructure at airports and the move towards implementation of IATA Resolution 753, which comes into effect in June. But for every thousand bags checked in, 5.73 went astray last year, which, multiplied by the 4.5 billion bags expected to be checked in this year, is still too much. With over three quarters of airline passengers keen to track their checked belongings using smartphones, a Uruguayan startup, ChillTravel, is focusing on that challenge.
The Uruguayan startup scene is fairly embryonic, and pre-seed and seed capital is elusive, as there’s a dearth of angel investors. However, Government support through Uruguay’s National Agency for Research and Innovation (ANII) gave ChillTravel a $25k grant, and with investment from some private parties, it’s managed to develop two products.
ChillTravel is bringing to market “Chill Wrap,” a “smart skin” for checked luggage, offering protection against damage and airport thieves, made from Dupont’s “Tyvek,” an ultra-resistant wrap so strong it has to be cut in order to take it off. In an interview for APEX, Jeronimo Acosta, ChillTravel’s founder and CEO, said: “The wrap will make dumb luggage smarter, by enabling the passenger to track their luggage and receive proximity notifications at the baggage belt, as the wrap is infused with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology.” The design comes in two different sizes to fit luggage of various shapes and dimensions. Acosta says the best part is that it will be “cheaper than the traditional plastic wrapping system sold at the airport.”
The startup’s other product is “Chill Tracker,” a slim BLE tracker designed for personal items such as wallets, tablets, computers, phones, passports, glasses etc, intended “to assure the recovery of forgotten items in airports and planes.” In case the item is lost or forgotten, as soon as it arrives at the airport’s Lost & Found Office, the tracker automatically alerts its owner that the item has been recovered. Using ChillTravel’s mobile app, passengers can either collect it in person or instruct DHL, which automatically quotes a shipping fee via the app, to deliver the item.
The app also emits proximity alerts in case the passenger strays from their belongings, using a crowdsourced network that feeds the system, so if something gets lost the network identifies its last know location. “Almost one percent of passengers forget stuff either on the plane or at security checkpoints in the airport,” said Acosta. “What they tend to lose are clothes, computers, tablets, watches and jewelry; only 10 percent of them get their stuff back. This means than more than 32 million passengers don’t retrieve their lost objects.”
Currently, ChillTravel has “working prototypes for both solutions,” said Acosta. “We’re starting mass production in September. It is important to remark that the Chill Wrap has been developed alongside Dupont Innovation Center. All the work has been done by our multidisciplinary team.”
As for the startup’s next steps, ChillTravel is in discussions with Plug & Play Accelerator and YCombinator and is readying to launch Chill Wrap on Kickstarter in October. Members of the ChillTravel team will be attending FTE Global next week.