Sung Vivathana with Henry (Photo by Christine Carignan)
#1 SpotOn GPS Fence | spotonfence.com
Three-Year Avg. Annual Growth: 168%
Founded: 2015
Rank on Private 100: 71
Headquarters: 7 Perimeter Road, Manchester
President: Fred Cronin
Total Number of Employees: 39
Product/Service: Designs and develops GPS fences for dog owners
When Sung Vivathana was tasked with building a better alternative to invisible or traditional fences to contain dogs, he drew on his background creating gear for the military.
“Working in the defense space, things just have to work,” says Vivathana, chief technology officer with Manchester-based SpotOn GPS Fence. “The collar, the containment system, just has to work.”
That edict has guided SpotOn in the 10 years since, through a period of explosive growth that’s seen SpotOn become one of the fastest-growing companies not just in NH, but in the country. This year, the business ranked number 854 on Inc.’s Top 5,000 list.
SpotOn uses global positioning systems (GPS) to create a virtual fence that collects data from a dog’s collar, pinpointing the animal’s location. Customers use an app to draw a “fence” around the property where they want their dog contained and train their dog to respond to a warning noise as it reaches a boundary. The SpotOn collar allows dog owners to set virtual, changeable boundaries with “unparalleled accuracy and reliability,” Vivathana says. Since the collar relies on GPS, there’s no hardware to install in the yard, making the
device a particularly great fit for pet owners with large or rural properties.
“What sets SpotOn apart is the unparalleled accuracy and reliability,” Vivathana says.
The technology needs to be reliable because it’s keeping a family member, albeit a four-legged one, safe. Vivathana would want nothing less for his five-year-old mini golden doodle Henry, or the thousands of dogs that SpotOn protects.
“Many dog owners consider their dogs part of the family, and they are,” Vivathana says.
To ensure that the product is always up to internal standards, SpotOn keeps business close, with everything from engineering to manufacturing and customer service in the Granite State. “We employ local people who are highly skilled,” Vivathana says.
This year, some of the team focused on integrating even more features into the SpotOn Collar. One particularly popular addition allows a dog owner to issue a command like “come home.” For owners with especially large properties, this is a great technique to allow their dog freedom, while recalling them when needed.
