Reliance Industries has invested an amount of $8 million in California-based NetraDyne. NetraDyne is an artificial intelligence company that focuses on the driver and commercial fleet safety.
Prior to this, Reliance invested $16 million in June 2016 in the startup, thus, this marks as its second investment in the firm. With this investment, Reliance now has taken over around 37.4% stake in the startup.
According to the statement, the investment was made through its subsidiary Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings (RIIHL). It has subscribed to 4.06 million shares (4,058,647 shares) at Rs 1.9711 per share.
Reliance said this investment has potential synergies with its “digital services and communications initiatives, apart from commercialization benefits in India.”
NetraDyne was established by former Qualcomm India & South Asia president Avneesh Agrawal and his Qualcomm colleague David Julian. They have developed a vision-based driver retention and safety platform for commercial vehicles called Driveri in the company.
This particular platform offers fleet managers a comprehensive real-time view of the activity of their drivers with the help of positive driving notifications and identifying best practices such as whether the driver is driving in proper lanes, following traffic rules and other such things.
CEO Agarwal stated that the device analyses things on road and detects abnormal driving behavior. It also reminds and makes them alert about any unexpected incident or emergency on the road.
NetraDyne has technology innovation centers in Bengaluru and San Diego (California). The firm reported a turnover of 0.4 million in the financial year 2018.