Global Lost & Found closes round for tracking lost electronics

September 16, 2008 | Dean Takahashi | Comments | |

Global Lost & Found has raised a first round of funding for its business of tracking lost portable electronics. The amount was not disclosed.

DFJ Frontier led the round and Sand Hill Angels participated. The San Bruno, Calif.,-based company has an asset tracking and recovery service. You purchase a $10 E-Tracker I.D. for any kind of device ($25 for a laptop) and affix the I.D. to the device. If it is lost or stolen, the label makes it easy to return the item. And the finder gets a reward such as a $10 gift card for portable devices such as cell phones or music players. A returned laptop can fetch a $25 gift card reward.

The company has a variety of competition. Absolute Software of Vancouver, Canada, makes the computer theft recovery products under the Computrace LoJack for Laptops brand. That company’s asset tracking software is embedded in a variety of laptops — Dell, Lenovo, Gateway, HP, and Fujitsu. All of the companies are thriving based on the rise of laptop theft and the accompanying identity theft that goes with it. Other companies that do this include Vontu, STOP, GadgetTrak, and FrontDoor Software.

Ken Westin, GadgetTrak’s founder, said his company can offer recovery service for laptops and all sorts of gadgets. His company also supplies “lost and found” stickers for devices that are lost.

Global Lost & Found products are now available to consumers through Tiger Direct, CompUSA, and Fry’s Electronics.

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About the Author, Dean Takahashi

Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Erick
    Wow a f*cking sticker. Yet advanced companies such as GadgetTrak ( www.gadgettrak.com) who offers the same service with lost and found tags, as well as innovative sofware to recover devices ( laptops, blackberry , windows mobile, iPod) and protect data in the event of theft is not covered...probably because they are not in The Bay Area/

    Stickers do not protect your devices. If you believe this I have a trunk monkey to sell you.
  • Leo
    TrackItBack.com has been doing this for a while now. This looks like a copy cat.
  • Leo
  • Leon
  • Typical
    Stickers, 800 numbers, haha! The police have better things to do than chase down your precious laptop. Better to prevent or prepare against theft in the first place.
  • D
    Don't buy anything from this company. The CEO just fired the whole sales team after another round of funding came in. The employees have been working their butts off for 10 months with no pay and as soon as they can be paid the CEO fires them. Not to mention he let someone go 2 days after he found out that their wife had a serious illness. The guy has no regard for his employees and his product sucks. Boycott this company.