San Diego startup to make commercial trucks safer on the road secures $ 150 million from Softbank

A leading edge San Diego computer vision and computing startup founded by two former Qualcomm research engineers has raised $ 150 million from the Softbank Vision Fund and others to accelerate technologies that improve driver safety in commercial truck fleets.

Netradyne, which opened in 2015, has developed an in-cabin camera system with powerful onboard computing power and artificial intelligence software, said managing director and co-founder Avneesh Agrawal.

The computer vision camera tracks hundreds of objects on the road and possibly the driver in real time. It sends audio alerts to drivers calling not only for unsafe practices, such as following too closely, but also praise for safe practices, such as slowing down to allow vehicles to merge on a freeway.

“The technology we use is very similar to the autonomous driving perception stack,” Agrawal said. “Our claim is that autonomous driving on a large scale is at least 10 years away. So, what if we do all that autonomous driving does, but instead of taking control of the vehicle, let’s invest in drivers. Let’s use this amazing technology to make drivers safer and roads safer.

San Diego is a hub for camera-based commercial truck driver safety technology. Lytx, the maker of DriveCam and SmartDrive are based here. Thousands of trucks are on the road with their on-board cameras and telematics solutions.

These systems often rely on G-forces, such as hard braking or swerving, to trigger the capture of a section of video from a loop. The recording can provide video evidence to exonerate drivers of an accident.

Netradyne claims that its next-generation cutting-edge artificial intelligence and computing platform captures and analyzes data immediately without a trigger event. This can help identify issues before an incident, as well as chronicle good driving practices to help retain and motivate employees in an industry plagued by driver shortages.

“Sometimes it’s simple, positive information that goes a long way,” Agrawal said.

Prior to founding Netradyne, Agrawal spent 20 years at Qualcomm, most notably as head of global research at one point. Co-founder David Julian was also a research engineer at Qualcomm, specializing in artificial intelligence. He is now CTO of Netradyne.

The 300-employee company has over 1,000 trucking companies as customers in North America and India, where it currently operates. It records around 200 million road trips per month, Agrawal said.

Netradyne has over 100 employees in the United States, primarily in San Diego. It will use the new funding to expand into Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other new markets. It will also invest in research and development around its core technology.

“There is a huge opportunity,” Agrawal said. “Commercial insurance is getting very expensive. Liability judgments we call nuclear verdicts – judgments over $ 10 million – have increased by almost 500% in the past five years. Thus, this leads to the need for security solutions to actually reduce the incident rate. “

The company said some customers have seen a 90% gain in obeying stop signs, a 60% improvement in distracted driving and a 76% improvement in following distance.

With SoftBank Vision Fund, existing investors Point72 Ventures and M12 participated in the round. The company has raised a total of $ 197 million since its inception.

“We believe Netradyne is an industry leader poised to have a profound impact on the entire transportation ecosystem by creating safer roads,” said Nagraj Kaskyap, Managing Partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “We are delighted to partner with Avneesh and the Netradyne team as they harness the power of computer vision and advanced computing to revolutionize modern transportation. “