The Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) announced today that its CIT GAP Funds closed an investment in CargoSense, a Reston-based startup offering a big data and analytics product to healthcare logistics providers. New Dominion Angels, a Virginia-based angel investment group, invested alongside CIT.

Every year more than 80 million climate-sensitive pharmaceutical shipments are made, and the pharmaceutical industry incurs $35 billion in losses resulting from damage that occurs during shipping. CargoSense's technology helps decrease this loss by collecting data such as light, temperature, pressure, humidity, shock and tilt using advanced sensor technology, and then providing intuitive data analysis to pharmaceutical logistics groups. Clients use the insights from CargoSense to reduce loss and ensure compliance for sensitive shipments.

CIT President and CEO Pete Jobse said, 'CargoSense uses data analytics to reduce waste in the pharmaceutical supply chain, meeting a need to optimize the supply chain and save money. Innovative solutions like this one are what we look for when making CIT GAP Funds investments.'

CargoSense was founded in 2012 by an impressive management team led by the founder of InfoEther and serial entrepreneur, Rich Kilmer. Kilmer is joined on the executive team by other notable InfoEther alums and successful career entrepreneurs.

CargoSense CEO Rich Kilmer said, 'We will use the investment from CIT GAP Funds to extend key product features, including our reporting and analytics. The investment will also help us grow sales within our existing customer segments. While we are initially focused on life sciences, we are also actively pursuing partnerships in food, restaurants, grocery chains and other market segments with sensitive supply chains.'

CIT GAP Funds is a family of seed- and early-stage investment funds placing near-equity and equity investments in Virginia-based high-growth technology, life science and clean technology companies.

Tom Weithman, CIT Vice President and GAP Funds Managing Director, said, 'Companies like CargoSense provide valuable, innovative solutions, but often find it difficult to obtain the early-stage funding they need to grow their business. CIT GAP Funds help plug that funding gap, giving Virginia startups the funding they need to contribute to the innovation economy.'

Since its 2005 launch, CIT GAP Funds has invested in over 100 companies across the Commonwealth of Virginia, deploying more than $13 million of public funds and attracting over $200 million more in private funding.

About the Center for Innovative Technology, http://www.cit.org
Since 1985, CIT, a nonprofit corporation, has been Virginia's primary driver of innovation and entrepreneurship. CIT accelerates the next generation of technology and technology companies through commercialization, capital formation, market development and revenue generation services. To facilitate national innovation leadership and accelerate the rate of technology adoption, CIT creates partnerships between innovative technology start-up companies and advanced technology consumers. CIT's CAGE Code is 1UP71. To learn more, please visit http://www.cit.org. Follow CIT on Twitter @CITorg and add the Center for Innovative Technology on LinkedIn and Facebook.

About the CIT GAP Funds, http://www.citgapfunds.org
CIT GAP Funds makes seed-stage equity investments in Virginia-based technology, clean tech and life science companies with a high potential for achieving rapid growth and generating significant economic return for entrepreneurs, co-investors and the Commonwealth of Virginia. CIT GAP Funds investments are overseen by the CIT GAP Funds Investment Advisory Board (IAB). This independent, third-party panel consists of leading regional entrepreneurs, angel and strategic investors, and venture capital firms such as: New Enterprise Associates, Grotech Ventures, Valhalla Partners, Harbert Venture Partners HIG Ventures, Edison Ventures, In-Q-Tel, Intersouth Partners, SJF Ventures, Carilion Clinic, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric and Alpha Natural Resources.

About CargoSense, Inc., http://www.cargosense.com & http://www.fridgesense.com
CargoSense is a big-data and analytics Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company founded to create solutions that optimize logistics networks ' in healthcare, food, medical devices and other industries with complex supply chains. The company has created the first collaborative supply chain software that operates using tablet, Web and mobile devices, collecting data with the newest generation of sensor technologies. Founded by serial entrepreneurs with a history of building successful software services using agile languages and customer-focused design, the company is based in Reston, Virginia.