Sheeva.AI today announced it has closed a strategic round, led by Hagiwara Electronics Co., Ltd. of Japan, and the Aggarwal Family of the Sterling Group, to fuel the adoption of its connected vehicle technology and Open API platform for automation of location-based services and in-car payments. These investments build on the existing, long-term collaboration with Hagiwara America and the Aggarwal Family in Asia and open the path for closer collaboration with automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers in North America, Europe, and APAC.
Takeshi Soejima, President of Hagiwara Electronics Co., Ltd., said, “In North America, the automobile industry is undergoing major changes, and new industries, such as MaaS, are emerging. This makes it one of the most important strategic regions for Hagiwara Electric as we aim for global growth. Collaboration with Sheeva.AI is very important for the realization of our strategy.”
Anish Agarwal of the Sterling Group, added, “We immediately saw the potential of Sheeva.AI’s API platform for location-enabled vehicle features and services. Our collaboration ultimately led to investment and to the launch of a subsidiary in India to accelerate growth throughout South and Southeast Asia.”
The core differentiator of Sheeva.AI’s technology is its patented location algorithm, enabling the platform to determine the vehicle’s real-time geolocation within 2-meter accuracy (5X better than smartphones). This is accurate enough to identify the car’s location at a gas pump, parking space, charging station, toll lane, etc. This precision enables the platform to automate last-mile services, meaning fewer manual steps for the driver and more engagement for the service providers.
Evgeny Klochikhin, CEO and Founder of Sheeva.AI, said, “We are excited to have Hagiwara Electric Co. Ltd, and the Aggarwal Family lend their collective deep automotive expertise to our team. Their investments will accelerate our existing work with automotive OEMs, energy companies, Departments of Transportation, and beyond, driving our growth to millions of vehicles by the end of 2022.”
Evgeny added, “Look, most in-vehicle platforms are overly complex, require you to learn new tech and, ultimately, are very vehicle focused. Our focus is on the driver. We enable auto manufacturers and merchants to automate services, such as fueling, curbside pickup and parking, for the driver. This creates a better driving experience with a more engaged customer.”
indie Semi for ADAS
-indie Semiconductor, Inc. (Nasdaq: INDI), an Autotech solutions innovator, has created a dedicated business unit focused exclusively on high quality perception-enabled, vision processing solutions to address the majority of usage cases for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS)-enabled vehicles. Ramesh Singh, an industry veteran, is leading indie’s new VisionQ business unit, which is supported by an exceptional team that together has already successfully brought millions of silicon, software and system solutions to the vision processing market over the last two decades. The group’s combined development capabilities, expertise in building large scale vision businesses and vast relationships worldwide position indie to deliver best-in-class sensing platforms for ADAS applications.
Enabling complex camera solutions with artificial intelligence (AI) functions are rapidly being adopted by major Tier 1s and OEMs as a way of bringing intelligence to solve difficult sensing problems. As the requirements for these compute functions increase, the integration within the power profile and the form-factor becomes even more challenging. Integrating the AI algorithms and sensing functions into the numerous automotive cameras requires intelligent edge-compute vision processing in practically every product to solve the varying levels of computational processing. indie believes ADAS solutions that integrate the perception stack (by fusing advanced sensing algorithms across vision, radar and LiDAR) will drive adoption of safety features being mandated globally.
Iteris Partners with NHSP
Iteris, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITI), the global leader in smart mobility infrastructure management, today announced a new and expanded contract with the New Hampshire Department of Safety, Division of State Police (NHSP) for Iteris’ commercial vehicle operations (CVO) software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions.
Under the terms of the multi-year SaaS contract, Iteris will extend NHSP’s use of Iteris Inspect™ for an additional five years and provide its CVIEW-Plus™ data services to support the state’s goals of obtaining compliance with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Innovative Technology Deployment (ITD) program, improving goods movement, and enhancing safety for truck drivers, law enforcement and roadside inspectors.
Iteris Inspect, powered by CVIEW-Plus data services, aggregates and automates the roadside inspection process, reducing the time to conduct commercial vehicle inspections by up to 50%. Less time roadside improves safety for both drivers and enforcement personnel. CVIEW-Plus data services further automate commercial vehicle selection processes, allowing compliant carriers to bypass weigh stations and enforcement personnel to focus on driver and carrier education aimed at reducing defects, benefitting the safety and mobility of the broader transportation network.
In addition to less time off the road for carriers and drivers, Inspect facilitates compliance with FMCSA and Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance regulations, including electronic logging.
Iteris’ suite of CVO SaaS solutions is a key component of its ClearMobility™ Platform – the world’s most complete solution to continuously monitor, visualize and optimize mobility infrastructure. ClearMobility applies cloud computing, artificial intelligence, advanced sensors, advisory services and managed services to help ensure roads are safe, travel is efficient, and communities thrive.
KPIT Invests in Middleware
KPIT Technologies Ltd, a leading independent software development and integration partner to the automotive and mobility industry, announced that it would make significant investments with a specific focus on middleware solutions with a vision to accelerate clients’ transformation to software-defined vehicles across both passenger and commercial vehicle segments.
Vehicle customer experience is deeply software-driven. There is an increasing need for hardware-software separation and for the OEMs to develop, deploy and update software solutions faster over the entire vehicle lifecycle.
OEMs are moving towards a central-compute architecture quicker than one would have anticipated. The automotive ecosystem is accelerating its efforts to build a robust and dependable software platform that can host varied domains such as Autonomous Driving/ADAS, Digital Cockpit, Electric Powertrain, and Body Control Module.
KPIT intends to develop and enhance technologies and infrastructure to help OEMs and Tier 1s in this mega transformation of vehicle architecture. It will address the emerging challenges through solutions in software integration, architecture consulting, platform component integration, integrated tooling, and CI/CT/CD* infrastructure to help OEMs accelerate the stitching of diverse components together.
The development process of how software is written, tested, and deployed in vehicles will significantly change and will involve globally distributed teams and newer safety standards on cybersecurity and autonomous vehicle safety. Investments will continue to be boosted in near team to develop specific solutions and capabilities to meet these changing needs.
KPIT today offers a broad range of technical solutions and has rich experience in supporting several production programs for its mobility clients. KPIT’s new investments in full-service capability, platforms, tools, and accelerators, will complement its existing software integration capabilities across the domains of Autonomous Driving, Electric Powertrain, Connected Vehicle, Body Electronics, AUTOSAR, Diagnostics, and OTA. Additionally, KPIT is proactively working with its partners to develop an ecosystem and build integrated solutions to help OEMs and Tier 1s fast-track their transformation journey.
Commenting on this key milestone, Kishor Patil, CEO, KPIT Technologies, said, “The main objective for KPIT in creating this focus is to help our clients rapidly and seamlessly transition to central-compute architecture. Our platforms, tools, accelerators, and methodologies offer the speed, scale, and independence required by the OEMs. We are excited to partner with and contribute to the ecosystem to help advance this transition by at least a year.”