LAS VEGAS—HP's flagship business laptop will soon come with a built-in Tile tracker as part of the latest partnership between the find-my-stuff startup and a major consumer tech company.

A refreshed HP Elite Dragonfly will be the first laptop to sport the tracking device when it goes on sale later this year, the companies announced here at CES. It could potentially solve two problems at once: How to find your laptop when it goes missing, and how to ensure that Tile, a struggling startup, doesn't go out of business.

In the face of stiff competition from other startups, as well as established companies like Apple—whose devices already feature built-in tracking software—Tile has branched out into embedded trackers. In addition to the HP partnership, Tile technology is also built into devices from Seinhesier, Bose, and the luggage brand Away, among others.

The HP feature, called Find My PC with Tile, could appeal to frequent business travelers who might accidentally forget their Elite Dragonfly G2 laptop in places like an airport security checkpoint. The built-in tracker works even if the laptop is off, thanks to a dedicated battery reserve.

The idea of building Tile into a laptop hatched at last year's CES, according to the company's CEO, CJ Prober. At the time, Tile had just launched its effort to embed trackers using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) into other tech products. The Elite Dragonfly G2 integration works a bit differently, with a full-size Tile tracker built into a slot on the laptop's motherboard.

It's still compatible with the Tile tracking app, Prober explained during a brief demonstration to PCMag. That means it will show up in the app alongside a user's other Tile trackers or embedded devices. Twenty-seven million Tile units have been sold to date, with 6 million devices located every day, according to Prober.

It's possible that the Tile tracker could expand to other laptops in the future, especially HP consumer models. HP frequently seeks out such partnerships, including a recent program to ship free VPN software with some of its new laptops. For now, the Editors' Choice-award winning Elite Dragonfly seems to be an excellent way to test the waters, given its position as the cream of the ultraportable laptop crop.

If Tile-equipped laptops catch on, it could be a boon to the company, which had to lay off staff and slow hiring in 2018.