Tactacam scaled IoT connected devices to millions with Verizon ThingSpace
When Ben Stern's grandfather could no longer venture into the Wisconsin wilderness he loved, Stern decided to bring the outdoors to him. Using technology to share the hunt, the wildlife and the raw beauty of nature, Stern and his fellow outdoor enthusiasts created what would later become Tactacam. In 2013, Stern partnered with current CEO Jeff Peel to officially found the company. "We shared the same passion," Peel said of their vision for Tactacam, now a leader in cellular trail cameras for hunting and outdoor surveillance.
Starting with point-of-view cameras for hunters, Tactacam refined its focus over the next six years. In 2019, the company launched its breakthrough Reveal cellular camera: a device that sends real-time video from the most remote locations, enabling hunters, wildlife enthusiasts and property owners to monitor distant locations through their smartphones.
But despite the company's innovative streaming technology, bringing reliable cellular cameras to market meant overcoming significant obstacles. The industry had already seen fifteen years of failures and technical limitations that consistently frustrated hunters.
Trail cameras fail to connect in remote hunting areas
Tactacam faced a fundamental challenge in bringing image and video sharing—modern digital conveniences most people take for granted in daily life—to remote trails and wilderness areas, where little to no network access exists. While cellular camera technology had been available for many years, it could not yet bridge this connectivity gap in the wild.
Traditional trail cameras relied on SD cards that required physical retrieval, disturbing hunting areas and defeating the purpose of remote monitoring. The cellular options offered were similarly disappointing, plagued by poor connectivity, battery life issues and complex setup processes that frustrated even tech-savvy users.
"We joked that really all we had to do to win was to make a camera that took pictures and sent them to your phone," said Peel. "The products on the market failed to meet those simple expectations."
Tactacam was also competing against established players who had a 15-year head start. The company needed to differentiate itself through a superior network partnership. Peel recognized that whoever emerged with the best network and device management capabilities would capture customer loyalty at a pivotal moment.
On top of these obstacles, Tactacam had grand ambitions. Peel's goal was to scale from hundreds of devices in early 2020 to millions by 2025—all while maintaining customer support for tens of thousands of new device connections each month.
If I had to name our top three keys to success, that partnership with Verizon would be one of the biggest reasons we are where we are today.
Jeff Peel, CEO, Tactacam
Verizon's network and IoT platform provide a scalable foundation
In 2020, Tactacam found an Internet of Things (IoT) solution for its growing pains in Verizon's Wireless Connectivity Partner (WCP) Program. WCP enables other businesses to sell and deliver Verizon's 4G LTE and 5G wireless solutions to their customers. Partners leverage Verizon's network and technologies to create their own bundled solutions. The partnership positioned Tactacam as a WCP partner with a bundled service model, making Tactacam the customer of record. This structure enabled end users to activate their cameras seamlessly, with Verizon powering the connectivity behind the scenes. The Verizon certification process, which authorizes Tactacam's IoT devices to be connected to the Verizon network, was also simplified, reducing device certification from months to just two weeks, providing the speed to market that Tactacam required.
Crucially, Verizon's network offered Tactacam the superior coverage that would be essential for sending video from remote locations. The network reached rural areas where Tactacam deployed its cameras, enabling near-real-time streaming video for the first time.
"Verizon has a big advantage compared to the other carriers within the United States, especially when it comes down to rural connectivity and those remote areas," said Ben Muzzio, Chief Technology Officer at Tactacam. "Verizon tends to have the strongest signal and the most reliable network in the United States."
Another advantage that Verizon offered was the ability to help Tactacam scale. Verizon positioned its infrastructure to facilitate the massive bulk activations Tactacam needed, including immediate deployments of hundreds of thousands of units. "I remember getting a phone call in the evening," said Tracee Cook, Associate Director of IoT at Verizon. "They said they needed nearly a million connections. So when you hear the words 'massive IoT,' that's massive IoT."
While network connectivity was essential, large-scale IoT management required a second critical component—a robust IoT platform. The Verizon ThingSpace platform offered Tactacam advanced IoT management capabilities, enabling it to scale from hundreds to millions of devices. Meanwhile, ThingSpace's substantial API library gave Tactacam's engineers the tools to build custom IoT integrations.
The Verizon team also offered consultative support, acting as an extension of Tactacam's engineering team throughout the product development process.
Verizon has a big advantage compared to the other carriers within the United States, especially when it comes down to rural connectivity and those remote areas.
Ben Muzzio, Chief Technology Officer, Tactacam
A reliable connection helps propel explosive growth for Tactacam
Tactacam's partnership with Verizon helped deliver explosive growth, proving the power of strategic IoT collaboration. From the partnership's inception in 2020 to today, Tactacam has scaled to millions of connected devices. The company soon ventured beyond hunting into security cameras, bird observation and construction site surveillance.
During this time, Tactacam expanded from fewer than 10 employees to over 500, serving over 1,000,000 customers worldwide. Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Tara Peel, who helped build the company from its earliest days, won recognition on Inc.'s 2025 Female Founders 500 List for this rapid growth.
Crucially, Tactacam achieved these impressive milestones without compromising on the customer experience. "Put batteries in, scan the QR code. Off you go," Jeff Peel said. "It takes less than two minutes to hook up a camera. Anybody can do it."
Reliable network connectivity also solved a key challenge of delivering near-real time access to photos taken on the trail.
"Now, when an animal walks in front of the camera, you typically get a photo within four to five seconds. Before we went days, weeks or even months to being able to see your photos. Now it's almost real time, within seconds," said Muzzio.
Eric Boerendonk, Application Engineer at Tactacam, relies on ThingSpace's monitoring capabilities to deliver such high performance. "The platform is easy to use. I can get the data that I need from it—historical data, or even seeing if a device is coming online and how it's performing," he said. ThingSpace integration has decreased customer complaints while empowering Tactacam's 260+ customer service staff with powerful troubleshooting tools.
"Verizon has been a great partner with Tactacam. We grew the business together," Boerendonk explained. Jeff Peel agreed, adding, "If I had to name our top three keys to success, that partnership with Verizon would be one of the biggest reasons we are where we are today."
Security cameras and enterprise markets drive Tactacam's next phase of expansion
Tactacam’s expansion into new markets is driven by it's new security product line, Defend by Tactacam, the brand that takes the company far beyond hunting and introduces cellular camera technology to a much broader audience. With Defend, homeowners, ranchers, construction crews, small businesses, and anyone with property outside the reach of Wi-Fi can experience the same reliability, simplicity, and real-time visibility Tactacam has long delivered to hunters.
Tactacam and Verizon are strengthening their model partnership through discussions of exclusivity agreements that could set new standards for IoT collaboration. Together, they make it possible to share outdoor stories in near real-time and enable smarter property monitoring-even in places once thought unreachable.