What Centiloc does

Centiloc is a French NFC-technology company that builds unit-level product identification and tracking systems for luxury brands and selective-distribution manufacturers. The company is headquartered in Meyreuil, in France's 'Smartcard Valley' cluster, and was founded in 2019 by three co-founders (Romain PALMADE, Frédérick BONNIN and Loïc HENNINOT) who previously worked together at STMicroelectronics, ATMEL and Safran on contactless and semiconductor technologies. Centiloc operates as CENTILOC SAS, a privately held company with no disclosed external institutional investors beyond a 2018 incubator residency at Incubateur Belle de Mai and two small equity rounds totaling roughly $2.7M.

Centiloc's product portfolio comprises three solutions built on a shared NFC infrastructure: Lift & Learn, an in-store experience that triggers digital content when a customer picks up a tagged product; Traceability, a unit-level anti-gray-market tracking solution that follows each individually signed item through production, distribution and point of sale; and Inventory, a real-time automated stock management system for retail and industrial environments. The core technology claim is NFC-based unit-level geolocation — identifying each product individually rather than by batch — delivered through discreet NFC tags on products and connected surfaces that detect interactions regardless of placement. The technology relies on the team's prior NFC Forum and ISO standardization work and on patents previously filed by the CEO.

The company monetizes through a combination of NFC hardware sales (tags and connected surfaces/readers), recurring software subscription for the real-time data platform, and managed anomaly-detection services for distribution security. Go-to-market is direct enterprise field sales with quote-based, multi-year contracts and personalized demonstrations; customers are enterprise brands in luxury perfumery, cosmetics, personal care, hair care and eyewear, with L'Oréal, Estée Lauder, Gillette, Wella, Cébé and Ado listed as logo references and an unnamed luxury perfume house cited as a case study reporting a 78% reduction in identified distribution-channel leaks.

Name

Centiloc

Legal name

CENTILOC SAS

Website

https://centiloc.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2019

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Centiloc is a French NFC-technology company that provides unit-level product identification and tracking solutions — Lift & Learn, Traceability and Inventory — for luxury and selective-distribution brands through NFC tags and connected surfaces.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

NFC-based Product Identification and Tracking

akta.pro primary industry

Anti-Counterfeit & Authentication Packaging (Holograms, QR/NFC, Track-and-Trace) (IMALANAJ)

akta.pro secondary industry

Product Information Management (PIM), Digital Shelf & Content Syndication Services (CRAOAOAH)

Keywords

• NFC inventory tracking
• Product traceability solutions
• Connected retail surfaces
• Lift and learn
• Supply chain visibility

Headquarters

HQ city

Meyreuil

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. NFC Hardware (Tags): Products equipped with discreet and invisible NFC tags that provide unique product identification. Likely one-time hardware sale per product tagged.
2. Connected Surfaces/Readers: Connected surfaces and reading points deployed in retail, warehouses, and production environments to detect NFC interactions.
3. Software Platform (Real-time Data): Real-time data feedback through a unified interface accessible everywhere, continuously updated. Software platform for inventory, traceability, and engagement analytics.
4. Anomaly Detection Services: Real-time alerts on chain breaks and risk areas through mobile phone scanning for distribution security.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Centiloc sells an NFC-based connected product technology platform comprising discreet NFC tags, connected reading surfaces, and a unified software interface. Built on this platform are three branded solutions: Lift & Learn for immersive in-store customer experiences, Traceability for unit-level product tracking and gray market detection, and Inventory for real-time automated stock management. Customers are primarily luxury and premium consumer goods brands operating selective distribution networks.

Product overview

Centiloc offers a unified NFC-based technology platform with three integrated product solutions: Lift & Learn (immersive in-store customer experience), Traceability (unit-level product tracking for distribution control), and Inventory (real-time automated stock management). All three solutions share the same core NFC technology infrastructure—products are equipped with NFC tags that communicate with connected surfaces, enabling real-time identification and data capture across retail and industrial environments.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Lift & Learn: In-store immersive customer experience platform using NFC technology to trigger content when customers lift products
• Traceability
• Inventory

Products and services

• Lift & Learn An immersive in-store customer experience solution where the natural gesture of lifting a product triggers digital content such as videos, storytelling, recommendations, and brand narratives in real time via NFC technology. Designed for luxury and premium retail brands seeking to boost in-store engagement, conversion, and brand perception.
• Traceability Unit-level product traceability solution that tracks each product individually through the supply chain using unique NFC signatures, enabling gray market and unauthorized channel detection, anomaly alerts via mobile scanning, and distribution security. Intended for luxury and selective-distribution brands seeking to eliminate gray market leakage and protect selective distribution networks.
• Inventory Real-time inventory management solution that automates stock tracking using NFC tags and connected surfaces, eliminating manual counting and providing continuous, unified visibility across retail floors, warehouses, and production environments. Targets retailers, laboratories, warehouses, and production operations.

Quantifiable outcome

• Reduced identified leaks in selective distribution channels by 78% for a luxury perfume brand
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability1 record

Feature5 records

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Impinj: Impinj provides RAIN RFID chips, tags and reader infrastructure used widely in retail and logistics — an incumbent platform competing for the same unit-level identification and inventory visibility budget as Centiloc.
• Avery Dennison: Avery Dennison is a global leader in RFID inlays and tags for retail and supply chain, with broad portfolio scale that competes with Centiloc's NFC product identification across multiple verticals.
• VusionGroup (SES-imagotag): VusionGroup provides electronic shelf labels, RFID and retail IoT platforms for store digitization, competing with Centiloc at the intersection of in-store engagement and inventory visibility for large retailers.
• Alien Technology: Alien Technology manufactures UHF RFID tags and readers for item-level retail, supply chain and asset tracking, overlapping with Centiloc's inventory and traceability deployments at scale.

Others

• Blue Yonder: Blue Yonder offers supply chain planning and visibility software used by large brands and retailers; comparable to Centiloc's Traceability product as a platform addressing gray-market and chain-of-custody visibility needs.
• PragmatIC Semiconductor: PragmatIC Semiconductor makes flexible NFC integrated circuits used in smart packaging and product identification, an enabling technology supplier for NFC-based solutions like Centiloc's.

Direct peers

• Talkin' Things: Talkin' Things provides NFC-enabled smart packaging and in-store consumer engagement solutions for brands, directly comparable to Centiloc's Lift & Learn in-store content triggering and brand storytelling use case.
• Estimote: Estimote builds Bluetooth-beacon and sensor-based in-store engagement and analytics for retail, comparable to Centiloc's Lift & Learn customer experience product, though using a different underlying wireless technology.
• Wiliot: Wiliot develops battery-free, unit-level IoT Pixels (NFC/Bluetooth) for product identification, traceability and supply chain visibility across retail and consumer goods — closely aligned with Centiloc's NFC-based per-item identification and traceability use cases.
• Nedap: Nedap offers RFID-based retail and inventory management solutions, including item-level tracking for fashion and luxury — comparable to Centiloc's Inventory and Traceability products at the store and warehouse layer.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/centiloc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/centiloc

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Centiloc