Video telematics startup LightMetrics has raised $8.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Sequoia Capital India.
With this, The startup aims to strengthen the various teams to set the stage for future growth, including engineering, customer success, product, marketing, sales and analytics.
In addition, It will continue to invest in cutting-edge AI technologies, new products and solutions to strengthen its offerings and deliver more value to fleets across its operations. The funds raised will also be used to explore adjacent opportunities like auto insurance, the statement said.
Founded in 2015 by Soumik Ukil, Ravi Shenoy, Mithun Uliyar, Gururaj Putraya, Pushkar Patwardhan and Krishna A.G., Lightmetrics is a cloud-based Software-as-a-Solutions (SaaS) platform that provides a layer of AI to dashcam recordings.
Lightmetrics said its solution uses edge AI and analyses video feeds from the camera installed in vehicles to better understand driver behaviour, reduce accidents and improve safety.
The automotive industry, and commercial fleets in particular, presented a huge opportunity. Owning and operating trucks has to be profitable, but they grapple with problems like fraudulent lawsuits, increasing accidents, risk of nuclear verdicts, lack of visibility into (increasing) risky driving behaviour (speeding, hard braking, drowsiness, distracted driving, etc.), mounting insurance costs, hiring and retaining drivers, rising fuel costs, etc, which significantly impacts their bottom line.
Video telematics promises to be the panacea for these problems with benefits like driver exoneration in accidents, providing visibility into risky driving, driver coaching to reduce risk and recognizing good driver behaviour.
The need of the hour is to increase market adoption massively across the world. To make that possible, LightMetrics provides an easy to integrate video telematics platform with the industry’s most efficient AI on the edge – allowing fleets to gain visibility into several risky driving behaviours based on real time analysis of road and driver facing cameras.
Having true edge AI with in-cab coaching helps prevent incidents vs reacting after-the-fact. The data aggregated from all vehicles in the fleet is presented in the form of useful insights with intuitive workflows to manage the fleet from a safety and driver behaviour perspective, it said.
“This investment by Sequoia Capital India is a testament to the fact that we are building the preeminent video-based fleet safety platform globally. We will invest deeply in building the most advanced and efficient edge AI, empowering our customer base to deliver this critical technology across the entire fleet ecosystem, and expanding our international footprint.” Soumik Ukil, CEO & Co-founder, LightMetrics.
Commenting on the investment, Ashish Agrawal, MD, Sequoia India, said, “Video telematics is the fastest growing segment of the telematics industry. Lightmetrics’ ability to deploy advanced computer vision models on the edge, across a range of dash cameras, enables it to serve all vehicle types in this large market. At Sequoia Capital India, we expect advancements in AI to transform several industries and are excited to partner with Lightmetrics on their quest to improve road safety.”
LightMetrics claims that it is deployed by over 2500 fleets across India, Middle East, US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, and South Africa.
Source @Indianstartupnews
