This crafty 4-month-old startup helps you never lose your keys (or kid) again

Losing your keys is awful. It’s probably happened to you at least once in your life, and I bet it frustrated the hell out of you.

Four-month-old Moscow-based startup Bunch wants to make it so you never lose you keys again, with a mix of custom hardware and an iOS app. You set a certain distance (between 30 centimeters and 30 meters), and both the device and your iPhone ring loudly whenever they’re too far apart.

So when your keys, wallet, TV remote, passport, briefcase, or anything you can attach the device to gets too far away, both the object and your phone give you a heads up. Bunch even mentioned in its slide deck that it be placed in your toddler’s pocket and ring if your child gets too far away from you.

This certainly isn’t a new concept. Companies have been offering devices like this for years. But Bunch’s edge could be that it’s specifically built with iPhones in mind. With so many iPhones out there and people always having their phones in their pockets, this would be a good way to find what goes missing.

Bunch co-founder Igor Parfenov told VentureBeat that inspiration for the company came from a conversation just a few months ago. Parfenov and three friends were sitting in a cafe and just started listing their problems. One person mentioned how he always misplaced his keys and wallet. The four friends got inspired and went to work making Bunch.

“We were just thinking of problems we had and how we could help other people,” Parfenov said.

Currently, the Bunch device is a little larger than a U.S. quarter (see below). But Parfenov says the company has made it a priority to quickly make it “smaller and thinner.”

Photos via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat and Bunch