Reelables scales smart label production 150% with Beckhoff automation
What's the deal? London-based Reelables has increased its smart label production speed by 150% after overhauling its manufacturing with Beckhoff Automation's platform. The startup, backed by a $10.4M Series A round, has added two new production lines and is targeting annual output of 100 million labels.
Co-founder and chief executive officer David Stanton said the company has moved from manual assembly to high-speed lines capable of producing tens of thousands of active tracking tags per shift.
Why now? Roughly 1.7 million packages are lost or stolen every day. Reelables' Bluetooth and 5G labels broadcast location in real time — unlike barcodes or QR codes that need manual scanning at fixed waypoints.
The labels are especially useful for high-value logistics and cold chain applications, maintaining temperature accuracy within 0.5°C for perishable goods. In April 2026, the company launched its "Anywhere" label — a 2×4-inch global shipment tracker priced from $8 per unit and approved for air transport.
Reelables is the only manufacturer producing labels with an integrated printed battery, a design that classifies the hardware as standard packaging. That means no customs declarations and compatibility with standard waste streams — a significant advantage for international trade.
What could go wrong? Scaling from tens of thousands of labels per shift to 100 million per year is an enormous leap. The company's production relies on a team of just ten people managing complex automated lines, leaving little room for error.
The manufacturing process itself is intricate: it embeds radio circuitry directly into a battery substrate while maintaining a paper-thin profile. Any quality issues at scale could undermine contracts with logistics clients that demand consistency.
The signal: Reelables' $10.4M Series A lands as the company transitions from early growth into a production-scaling phase, a critical inflection point where many hardware startups falter. The round's focus on manufacturing capacity rather than R&D suggests investor confidence that the core product is proven and the bottleneck is now volume — a bet that disposable, battery-integrated IoT labels can reach commodity pricing fast enough to capture a logistics market losing 1.7 million packages daily.
Read more: makersng.com
