car thieves dashed by dots

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Car thieves dashed by dots
Ian Porter - The Age - July 19, 2006

CAR theft prevention company DataDot has raised $7.6 million to fund its progress towards having its unique car identification system installed on a car maker's assembly line.
And the company will also pursue its DataTrace project with the CSIRO to perfect a system to identify bulk products like concrete or anti-fouling paint, which can be substituted with under-specification products.
"We are talking to a lot of car makers around the world," said DataDot founder Ian Allen, although he stressed there was nothing firm yet.
DataDot's product involves spraying the components of cars with an adhesive that contains thousands of microdots, each engraved with a unique number.
If a car is stolen and its parts used to rebirth a car already written off by the insurance industry, the DataDots on the components will identify them as having been stolen.
Mr Allen said the system was was not only good at identifying stolen cars and parts but it also prevented theft.
"We aim at professional thieves who steal a car, break it up and rebirth it," Mr Allen said. "The thieves know about DataDot, that there are these invisible little dots everywhere and they won't get them off."
Mr Allen said $1.5 million of the cash raised would be used to match a grant from the Federal Government and would be added to a grant of $500,000 from the National Automobile Theft Reduction Council.
The total of $3.5 million would be used to promote the adoption of DataDot by the car makers, including subsidising the installation of a DataDot robot on a production line.
DataDot is already supplying individual car owners in Australia at the rate of 75,000 a year and has signed deals with three chains of new car dealers in the US covering 13,000 separate dealerships.
Mr Allen said the funds raised would also be used to finance work on DataTrace, a system for identifying bulk products like explosives, concrete and paint.
"If a ship owner pays to have a ship painted with anti-fouling paint and the paint comes off after six months at sea, the owner will be able to check to see whether the proper paint, with microdots, was used or substituted with cheaper paint."
The placement was completed at 42¢ a share. DataDot's shares gained 1¢ to 41.5¢ yesterday.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/business/car-thieves-dashed-by-dots/2006/07/18/1153166383227.html