In this episode of the IoT For All Podcast, David Stanton, CEO and co-founder of Reelables, joins Ryan Chacon to discuss how smart labels are transforming the supply chain. The conversation covers the current state of the supply chain industry, the challenges of data quality, why data still flows across supply chains by email, how smart labels compare to barcodes, computer vision, and drones for tracking assets, passive vs active smart labels, cargo tracking, and the future of the supply chain.

David Stanton is the CEO and co-founder of Reelables. Under his leadership, Reelables has pioneered mass production of flexible, battery-powered smart labels. In 2025, David guided the company to raise a $10.4 million Series A round, fueling expansion of its manufacturing capabilities and scale-up plans targeting the production of up to 100 million smart labels per year. Prior to Reelables, David was CTO of Nattr and held senior technology roles at AND Digital and Drayson Technologies.

Reelables brings a manufacturing process for producing smart labels at scale, enabling large-scale deployment of IoT technologies and enhancing supply chain visibility. Reelables makes the first and only printable smart label for tracking cargo and inventory. It is the first company to achieve mass production of a brand-new category of thin film, wireless smart labels with coated batteries that are flexible enough to be printed on in off-the-shelf barcode printers and fully disposable after use.

Offering both paper-thin Bluetooth and 5G smart labels, Reelables automates supply chain and logistics visibility at scale for logistics providers, retailers, and manufacturers, providing exact shipment location and inventory counts for each item without the need to manually scan barcodes or read RFIDs. Its ability to track shipments and inventory at the item level helps companies reduce theft and loss and increase accountability.