![Biotraq: Revolutionizing the Food Supply Chain with IoT, AI and Data Analytics](http://media.assettype.com/analyticsinsight%2Fimport%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F05%2FIOT-Rectangle3.jpg?w=480&auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max)
Biotraq started to develop QualTrack™ in 2015, a platform that predicts, controls and alerts on the status of high-value products sensitive to their environment all along the supply chain.
Collecting environment data from sensors, QualTrack™ uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and mathematical algorithms to advocate corrective actions in real-time and help producers maintain the expected quality of the products they cannot afford to lose.
Biotraq was created with the vision to feed and look after 10 billion people in 2050 as there is no choice but to reduce losses in the Supply Chain. So, the company's original mission statement was to develop a new cold chain, smart, safe and sustainable to help food industrials reduce avoidable waste.
Interestingly, the first clients using Biotraq technology were all from the pharma world, showing that the company's value proposition could apply to many other industries.
Today, Biotraq addresses producers, whatever their industry, that can't afford to lose their products, as they are highly sensitive to their environment, rare or just invaluable.
With the company's "tech for good" vision, Biotraq believes in the positive impacts of technology to make industries more proactive, flexible and transparent.
Indeed, Biotraq still supports strongly the UN sustainable development goal of halving global food waste by 2030.
The company is led by Olivier Duchesne De Lamotte, CEO. After 22 years of heading investment teams in financial markets, Olivier decided to act on fighting food waste, a subject he always had in mind following a summer internship in Africa at the age of 21.
Convinced about the potential of technology for good, he co-founded Biotraq with the aim to propose an easy-to-use solution for improving the safety and quality of products with real-time monitoring.
With strong financial knowledge, Olivier has also developed cutting-edge expertise in the logistics sector which makes him aware of client needs.
The use of IoT solutions around the world has led to a massive collection of heterogeneous data. Without relevant analysis, this data has no added value.
By remaining agnostic about sensors, Biotraq selects the most relevant ones for customer needs (data precision, battery life, communication network, price, etc.) and offers high added value services.
With Biotraq's artificial intelligence approach and mathematical models, the company supports decision-making optimization and provide real-time recommendations to its clients.
Also, Biotraq has developed SMAQ, the first ever smart-contract for blockchain that validates the transition from one logistic phase to other thanks to a certified quality level. Biotraq acts as a 3rd party oracle, pushing products quality and safety calculations to blockchains for all stakeholders: B2B supply chain operators (producer, logistician, distributor), regulators and insurers, as well as end-consumers.
Olivier believes that disruptive technologies are the necessary add-ons to unleash the true potential of IoT that allows IoT innovation to have a greater impact on operational activities. The multiplication of connected devices associated with data analysis, artificial intelligence and automation allow industries to have better control, much-improved risk-management through predictive actions and automated decision-making tools all along with their processes.
This flow of information also leads to transparency at all points that fit with increasing requirements not only from regulators but also consumers.
IoT players only monitor products (geolocation and environment). Biotraq's innovative positioning is to monitor not only products and environment but also the quality of the products in real-time. This disruptive approach leads to offer innovative services such as predictive, preventative and corrective actions to help improve supply chains.
Also, QualTrack™ is a modular and interoperable platform that does not depend on a specific technology and stays open to IoT innovation. The company can, therefore, propose to customers a data analytics service on top of their own sensors' infrastructure.
From the outset, Biotraq has built a strong ecosystem. Based in Paris Station F and Rungis, the largest fresh food market in the world, Biotraq has developed closed links with leading-edge French universities such as AgroParisTech and Telecom ParisTech (R&D collaboration agreement), collaborates with IBM Food Trust and is a member of two competitiveness clusters Vitagora and Nov@log.
Among the awards Biotraq has received, some significant ones are mentioned below:
• 2018: Best startup to invest in 'Tech and IoT' category according to Challenges economics magazine. The company has been recognized as the carrier of a real citizen and ecological commitment.
• 2017: Coca Cola's Favorite Prize at the CES Las Vegas.
• 2016: Carrefour's Favorite Prize for the Hello Tomorrow Challenge.
Client's feedback:
"Biotraq's innovative offer helps us to improve the tracking of our products to the end-consumer. Today, not only we know exactly where the products are but also in which conditions and we can instantly react in case of an emergency. As simple and easy-to-use, Biotraq's solution allows us to increase our safety level, reduce losses and propose high added-value delivery service."
In the beginning, industries were not ready to use Biotraq's data-driven solution as IoT technology was not sufficiently deployed, particularly in mobility. This led the company to a lot of market evangelization and low income. Biotraq's first challenge has been to hold long enough to go beyond this phase and convince about its vision and start clients' traction.
Another major challenge was to move from the food sector (Company's DNA) to other industries. Biotraq's first MVP was only food-waste oriented, with a safety approach. It was therefore quite complex albeit useful. So, the company developed a new plug-and-play user-centric solution for every industry: QualTrack™.
Oliver said that beyond the financial challenge inherent to any businesses, Biotraq must find the right resources to cope with the constant and rapid evolution of IoT solution if it wants to stay as innovative as desired to be.
Oliver feels tomorrow's IoT will have to process a huge amount of data efficiently and effectively. Enterprises will have to get the data to the right place, analyze it in the right context and provide the right information to the right people. In many cases, these actions will have to be taken in real-time or near real-time. Intelligent systems will have to determine which data to process locally and which must be routed to centralized facilities. To do this, it will not be enough to automate the process, but it will require a high degree of autonomy in which the machines will decide themselves how to proceed in a wide range of circumstances. To put it shortly, IoT will become Internet of Everything with decentralized intelligence directly at the sensor level.
In this landscape, he believes Biotraq will be a global player providing dedicated platforms offering an integrated sensor-to-specific use case service.
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