Why is this driverless car startup changing tack to become a software designer

Mint

20-05-2025

Five years ago, a Bengaluru-based startup was founded with the ambition to make the country's first driverless car. However, the company is now changing tack to become a software designer.
Minus Zero, which raised $1.7 million seed funding from a group of investors led by Chiratae Ventures in March 2022, has launched a software designed to help India's automakers develop advanced driverless assistance (ADAS) capabilities.
ADAS was introduced to help increase car safety and security on roads, helping drivers in parking, lane detection and braking, among other things. The startup is already offering the autopilot system to automakers like Ashok Leyland Ltd and Tata Motors Ltd, a top company official said.
Pivot driven by policy
Minus Zero's pivot comes after the government announced that India will not move towards driverless cars, which meant a lack of market for a completely driverless car in the country.
'Over the past two years, the lack of a market for completely driverless cars in the near future, especially with the Union cabinet minister suggesting that India will not go the driverless way on its roads in the foreseeable future, meant that we had to pivot," Gagandeep Reehal, co-founder and chief executive of Minus Zero, told Mint.
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In December 2023, Union minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari had said that driverless cars will not be allowed in India in order to protect the jobs of drivers.
India-specific AI for ADAS
Speaking to Mint ahead of the launch of the software platform, Reehal said that the plan was part of a long-term product strategy—driven by industry demand and government strategies.
'When we started working on trying to make a fully self-driving vehicle, we were one among many startups around the world looking to build a Tesla alternative around the world," Reehal said. 'Today, Waymo is the only notable one left among full-sell-drive startups, that too in a limited region and solely because of the might of Google backing it."
The firm claims to have developed the platform after testing in dense urban traffic in Bengaluru, helping it get accustomed to the unique nature of Indian roads.
'Over the past 18 months, we're working with ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India) to collect on-road real-world testing data to build an AI model based completely on the Indian context and peculiarities," Reehal said.
For instance, the company tried gauging how to map traffic in roads that do not have markings, or have very slow, unorganised traffic.
ADAS growth and challenges
Advanced driver assistance systems have gained prominence since being introduced to the Indian market. In 2021, India's fourth-largest automaker Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd's XUV700 became the first sports utility vehicle (SUV) of the country to offer ADAS system for consumers.
Since then, Hyundai Motor India Ltd and Tata Motors Ltd have also introduced the ADAS system in their cars. Through sensors and cameras, drivers get alerts and assistance with braking and lane changing on the roads.
ADAS is a pack electronic technologies in vehicles that aim to reduce human error, a major cause of road accidents, by providing drivers with timely information and active assistance.
However, a key challenge for the country's automakers is making the technology work on Indian roads. While developed nations such as the US have examples of fully automated cars such as Waymo and Tesla, the country is far behind the curve on this.
Some evidence suggests it is growing. Hyundai's FY25 car sales included about 14% of cars with ADAS, a 7% growth from a year ago.
But the problem, as some automakers highlight, is the random nature of Indian roads.
Future prospects and funding
'The nature of traffic in India is completely different. While some players thought we can apply a lot of specifications of the Chinese market here, the unpredictability is quite high in the country," a senior executive at a top European car maker said. 'You cannot introduce ADAS without an off-switch for now. It's then very important to build the ADAS system within the country."
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The ADAS system has levels ranging from level 0 (no automation) to level 5 (full automation). The development in the Indian market is largely focused on levels 2 and 3.
Major automakers are said to be working on ADAS advancements in the Indian market to enhance operations. Mercedes Benz India is one of them.
'We are investing significant time and efforts to analyze customer feedback on the functioning of ADAS on Indian road conditions. Several India-specific advancements and adaptations are already under progress in the R&D domain at Mercedes Benz Research Development Institute," Santosh Iyer, managing director and CEO at Mercedes Benz India, said.
Pilot run on Indian roads
Minus Zero is already working on co-engineering pilot projects with Ashok Leyland, Tata Motors and 'one of Europe's top three automobile groups" to test its platform on their cars—that would be set to release in 2027, or 2028. This is around the same time when Minus Zero projects steady annual recurring revenue generation.
A senior industry executive familiar with the matter told Mint that a large part of this claim is based on using a visual AI model to form virtual queues of cars, which in turn help vehicles understand proximities between objects in context of the surroundings.
'For instance, if you were in Delhi's Chandni Chowk, the minimum safe distance you can keep without stalling traffic is very different from the Yamuna Expressway leading to Agra. For Indian roads that are predominantly unorganised and unmarked, having the ability to do so and understand what is an obstruction and what isn't is key. Indian startups clearly have a scope of business here," the executive told Mint.
Commercial viability
Quantifying this, Reehal said that the scope of business can amount up to $90-100 million in annual revenue by deploying ADAS features in one variant of a bestselling car that sells 100,000 units in one full year.
'This would be a conservative estimate, but is the kind of revenue that we seek to generate within the next two years—as current projects convert into commercial deals," Reehal said.
He is currently in San Francisco, California, to pursue the startup's series-A round of private equity or venture capital funding. After its seed funding of $1.7 million, the startup raised a 'small" bridge round over the past 12 months—the valuation or funding quantum of which Reehal did not want to disclose.
Reehal added that he expects that once commercial contracts start coming in, the pricing of his ADAS software offering will further diversify. "We're offering the platform along with integrated hardware such as cameras and sensors, or in a stripped-down software version only, for a rough pricing of $900-2,000 per car," he added.
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The industry executive cited earlier concurred on the projection, adding that the current pricing is in line with present generation ADAS features.
'In the near future, the pricing will certainly go down as ADAS features trickle down into the budget segment as well. The automotive regulatory body (ARAI) will also help propagate ADAS as a crucial safety feature, and for that, Indian data and context through purpose-built AI models is necessary," he said.