Zebra Technologies Invests in Xemelgo as Off-the-Shelf Flexible Software Plays More Critical Role in RFID

At the end of July 2025, Zebra Technologies announced an investment in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) software provider Xemelgo. While the investment sum was not disclosed, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show that Xemelgo raised US$1.5 million at the beginning of July, out of a total of US$3 million sought, bringing Xemelgo’s total funding since 2020 to US$7.3 million.

Investment in Xemelgo is yielding dividends. Since the start of 2023, Xemelgo has increased the number of RFID readers deployed on its platform by more than 5X—and about 2.5X since the start of 2024. With this increase comes an important diversification in customers; while SEKISUI Aerospace has been one of the company’s largest customers since 2022, its share of Xemelgo’s total revenue has been diminishing significantly as the latter grows. To date, some of Xemelgo’s largest deployments have been with Nordic ID’s RFID readers (including SEKISUI). Still, it is Xemelgo’s partnership with Zebra that has driven a significant portion of the growth in reader numbers in the past 18 months–clearly showing Zebra’s interest in Xemelgo’s platform.

Xemelgo’s offering is one of a crop of emerging off-the-shelf Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) RFID solutions that look to remove complexity from RFID deployments. RFID deployments typically require extensive customization of the reader, software, and integration fronts. Xemelgo’s solution aims to solve these challenges by providing an easy-to-deploy cloud-based platform to integrators, portable across any use case or industry, deployable on any hardware, which allows customers and integrators to focus on building operational workflows, rather than the heavy technical lifting of RFID.

Xemelgo’s main vertical today is manufacturing, with customers that include SEKISUI, Yamaha, Hiscox, or Curtiss-Wright, which use the platform for work-in-process, Returnable Transport Assets/Returnable Transport Packaging (RTA/RTP) management, asset management, inventory management, or dock door validation. However, one of Xemelgo’s strengths compared to other software platforms is its flexibility across industries, allowing it to build a broad base of integrator partners. One fast-growing vertical for the company is retail, where its partnership with Good American has driven it to deploy a single version of the Xemelgo platform across Good American’s factory, Third-Party Logistics (3PL), and retail footprint, with messaging focused on creating a digital thread of products across their lifecycle.

Xemelgo’s industry breadth and partner-led approach are likely two of the aspects of the company that resonate so well with Zebra, which boasts an enormous integrator network across many verticals. Concrete benefits for both companies complement the similarity in philosophies and mindsets.

First, Zebra’s investment gives Xemelgo access to a much greater array of partners and projects. The two companies’ collaboration has been increasingly close over the past 12 to 18 months, frequently showcasing joint solutions at trade shows across industries.

Second, many of Zebra’s RFID partners are fairly small Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC) integrators, which spend a lot of time on hardware evaluation and custom software development. A closer collaboration with Xemelgo gives these integrators the tools to focus on value-added applications, workflows, analytics, integrations, or field deployments, rather than on overcoming the technical challenges of RFID.

Third, as RFID becomes more mainstream, enterprise software suppliers and larger Information Technology (IT) integrators are increasingly asking how to get in on the act. A joint go-to-market strategy between Zebra and Xemelgo significantly lowers the barrier to entry for these companies by removing the need for them to become experts in the technology—typically one of the larger hurdles for new entrants—and allowing them to focus on value-added services. In other words, a joint go-to-market enables small AIDC integrators to move up the stack and allows Zebra and Xemelgo to message larger integrators and software providers, creating scale and greater Return on Investment (ROI) opportunities.

Finally, RFID customers want suppliers to come with bundled hardware and software to avoid needing to contract separately and manage extensive integration work. Zebra’s best-in-class hardware, combined with Xemelgo’s highly flexible software, which can be deployed both in the cloud and on edge devices, makes both companies a highly competitive offering, particularly when integrators lead projects with deep industry expertise. 

A partnership like that between Zebra and Xemelgo, cemented by a strategic investment, provides clear benefits for customers, partners, and the two companies themselves. Within the RFID industry, the conversation has shifted from being one around technical capabilities of RFID to go-to-market, particularly around lowering the barrier to entry for customers in different verticals and around interesting integrators, operational software providers, and reference systems like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in the enhanced opportunities from using digital twins based on item-level data. The retail supplier ecosystem, far the most mature, has been moving rapidly in this direction over the past 36 months: the amount of technology innovation and number of strategic partnerships from suppliers like SML, Checkpoint, Nedap, Sensormatic, and others has been remarkable in both breadth and depth, such that offerings today are unrecognizable from just a few years back. Xemelgo’s unique software architecture and pure integrator-led approach incrementally advance innovation in the retail market (where suppliers still often act as their own integrators) and bring a step change for markets outside retail.

There are important takeaways from this announcement for suppliers across the industry. Reader suppliers must consider their go-to-market strategy carefully to present bundled RFID systems, either through partnerships or by building their own solutions. AIDC integrators need to determine which unique services they can offer, such as integration into a broader automation stack, to add the most value as hardware evaluation and custom development become an easier task. Operational Technology (OT) and IT integrators must consider where RFID fits into their software technology stacks and how it complements other parts of their offerings. RFID software providers need to know how flexible they are in addressing emerging opportunities outside of apparel retail and the range of data sources they support. Enterprise software systems must assess where they stand with building workflows on item-level and automatically retrieved RFID data, as it first helps win new Requests for Proposal (RFPs) from customers before eventually becoming table stakes.

Finally, and possibly the most important takeaway for the entire supplier ecosystem, the partnership demonstrates the growing importance of a software-first approach. Hardware suppliers—both tag vendors like Avery Dennison and reader vendors like Zebra or Impinj—have traditionally led, generating demand in new markets and handing opportunities off to their integrator partners. What is rapidly changing, however, is the leading role software vendors are starting to play in generating demand by demonstrating faster ROI through easy-to-deploy applications and analytics. Hardware remains important, as software vendors look for best-in-class partners for different types of reader infrastructure. Still, it is software—its flexibility and functionality—that will drive the RFID market to its next level. Xemelgo itself is offered as a native solution on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) marketplace, which brings it a significant proportion of its projects. Making RFID easy for enterprise systems, for large integrators, and ultimately for customers is what will drive the tipping point across a broad range of verticals.