Latest news with #Nedungadi
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Automotive
- Time of India
With 98% R&D in India, Netradyne puts Indian deeptech on the global mobility map
Every year, about 1.2 million lives are snuffed out in road accidents worldwide, according to a World Health Organisation report. Of this, India reports the most number of fatalities. But this deeptech startup, which is also the first unicorn of 2025 in India, is out on a mission to improve road safety and efficiency by leveraging cutting-edge technology that transforms the transportation industry. Netradyne , founded in 2015 by Avneesh Agrawal and David Julian–both Stanford alumni–provides AI-powered fleet safety and video telematics solutions , a form of passive ADAS ( Advanced Driver Assistance System ). Its flagship product– Driver•i– powered by advanced AI analyses every minute of drive time with up to 99 per cent accuracy, recognising both risky and safe driving behaviours. With over 20 billion of driving miles analysed, the company claims the product has delivered a significant reduction in accident rates amongst its users. 'Our customers from India and the US have reported a 50 per cent reduction in accident rates,' Durgadutt Nedungadi, Senior Vice President, Netradyne, told ETAuto. Now, the San Diego-based startup is planning to launch a new line of products which will raise the bar further in its preemptive approach to road safety, with a focus on detecting driver fatigue. 'Shortly, we will launch products which focus on the sleep cycle. By using advanced technology, we have worked on a number of these sleep scales that study blink rates. In this way, we can raise an alert early in the cycle when a driver is sleepy,' said Nedungadi. In the near future, we will also work on technology that can capture pupil dilation to detect state of inebriation, he added. Profitability & R&D focus The Softbank-backed startup has recently announced its global expansion plans, with a target to expand its footprint to 15 countries. The company currently has commercial operations spanning 10 countries, including India, but counts the US as its biggest market. 'About 90 per cent of our sales come from the US. But, over the next few years, we want to reach a stage where the rest of the world contributes a far greater percentage of revenues so that we're truly a global kind of company, notes Nedungadi. Fresh from its Series D round funding, the company has set its eyes on revenue growth while chasing profitability. Over the last two years, the company registered a growth of over 50 per cent and intends to continue the momentum. While not specifying a timeline, Nedungadi emphasised the goal of achieving profitability in the near-term horizon. In 2024, it generated a revenue of $210 million (around ₹1,743 crore). The startup, which has over 3000 customers across the markets including Shell, IndianOil, among others, is also in talks with a number of OEMs from the commercial vehicle segment to explore potential collaborations and integration of its technology. The company has a deep focus on R&D, with about 550 of its 850 employees engaged in the tech area. " Our company has upwards of 30 patents to its name. For us, tech is the important aspect and unless we keep innovating, we will not get to where we really want to be," noted Nedungai. "Although the company is incorporated in San Diego, our tech headquarter is in Bengaluru," he added. With over 98 per cent of its R&D based in India, this startup is not just fostering the future of safe mobility, but also amplifying India's deeptech presence on the global map.
Time of India
30-04-2025
- Automotive
- Time of India
SoftBank-backed Netradyne, India's first unicorn of 2025, eyes profitability by year-end
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads SoftBank-backed Netradyne , a fleet safety and video telematics solutions provider, expects to be profitable by the end of 2025, or early next artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning-powered unicorn is registering 50% growth year-on-year, and planning to expand its global footprint in the coming two years, senior executive Durgadutt Nedungadi said on San Diego and Bengaluru-based startup, valued at $1.3 billion, has announced plans to expand its global footprint to 15 countries by the end of 2026, up from 10 nations currently. It will add Japan and Spain in 2025 and expand its presence to Ireland, France and Italy by the end of company's flagship product is an AI-powered, vision-based IoT system that can be mounted on commercial vehicles . It uses cameras to capture video and sensory data both inside and outside the vehicle to detect driving behaviours and events in near real-time. The platform promotes safer driving and aims to reduce road accidents, protect drivers from false claims at the time of an accident, lower insurance costs, and simplify compliance services over 3,000 clients worldwide, many of which are prominent names in sectors such as global online retail, food and beverages, oil and gas, transportation, utilities, field services, passenger transit, and construction. The client list includes Amazon, Shell and Pepsi, as well as Reliance Industries and Hindustan Unilever in this, the company has millions of miles worth of data, which it uses to train its algorithms and make them more efficient as a driver's assistant. 'We anonymise number plates (and pedestrian faces) seen through the external camera. From a privacy perspective, there is no intermingling of data, nor do we provide a customer's data to a third party,' Nedungadi startup entered the unicorn club after raising $90 million in an equity funding round led by Point72 Private Investments, with Qualcomm Ventures and Pavilion Capital latest funding round brings the total capital raised by Netradyne to $308 million, according to Tracxn. The company's existing investors include SoftBank Vision Fund, Silicon Valley Bank, Reliance Industries, and rise of autonomous driving technology in the US, one of its key markets, threw up some questions, but Nedungadi said it is not a threat. He claimed that Netradyne's tech is, in fact, a few steps ahead.'The fundamental difference between autonomous driving tech and us is philosophy. Instead of imparting control to the vehicle, we give proactive control to the driver. We recognise and track far more elements than an ADAS (advanced driver-assistance system) does. We have the ability to detect anything a human eye can see through our cameras,' he said.
Mint
30-04-2025
- Automotive
- Mint
Netradyne targets ride-hailing market with AI dashcams after unicorn tag
US-based Netradyne, which provides artificial intelligence-powered dashcams, is expanding its driver monitoring technology to cab-hailing services, a senior official at the recently-minted unicorn said on Tuesday. 'Some of the pilot projects with fleet operators who provide their cars to ride-hailing services will roll out soon in India. We hope to close our first large deal soon," Durgadutt Nedungadi, senior vice-president of international business at Netradyne, told Mint on the sidelines of a media round table in Bengaluru where it announced its expansion plans. Netradyne was founded by former Qualcomm executives Avneesh Agrawal and David Julian in 2015. While the company is incorporated in San Diego in the US, all of its major research and development (R&D) work as well as testing is done at its office here in Bengaluru. Nedungadi declined to name which ride-hailing provider the startup is currently in talks with, but said that it is a 'global company." 'We've been very cautious in terms of saying that we will go everywhere," said Nedungadi, commenting on the company's commercial expansion into Japan and Spain, which is slated to be completed by the end of 2025. He explained that given how road safety regulations, driver behaviour, signages, and conditions differ across nations, their entry into new markets has been carefully done in order to reduce the number of false alerts its system provides. Netradyne offers a artificial intelligence-based product called Driver I that is capable of monitoring risky driver behaviour like drowsiness, texting while driving and simultaneously issuing real time alerts to make them refocus on the road. The company recently raised $90 million in a Series-D funding round led by Point72 Ventures, which took its valuation to $1.34 billion. Other investors in the company include SoftBank, Reliance, M12 (Microsoft's venture arm), and Qualcomm Ventures. While the money that was raised is being used to fuel global expansion, technology and research continue to account for most of the company's spend this year. 'We've three distinct areas of technology we want to continue investing in: our AI and machine learning capabilities, improving the sensors on our cameras, i.e., device tech and finally, making fleet information easily available to safety managers through the cloud," Nedungadi said. In fact, nearly 80% or over 600 of Netradyne's workers focus on building the company's technology, out of the 850 that it currently employs. While the company does see the consumer segment as a potential market, the focus for now remains B2B. 'The needs of the consumer market both in terms of tech as well as in terms of support infrastructure are very different," he said. Netradyne had initially started out in the US and India. 'These two nations provided very diverse kinds of driving conditions and if your tech can adapt to these two extremities, you should be able to adapt to most most global requirements," Nedungadi said. In the US, the company started with a focus on logistics companies in the north east in order to better understand geographic conditions and build out its data sets. In fact, the company has built its entire AI and ML technology based on data it has gathered itself. While Netradyne started by servicing the US commercial trucking market, it has since expanded to also look at hazardous material and last-mile delivery. Other than that, the company also offers solutions for fleet providers that work in corporate and employee transportation. Last year, the company signed a deal with Taski Technologies, a B2B fleet operator. 'These are areas which have evolved as huge low-hanging fruit for us. The penetration levels in these segments are in the mid to low single digit figures in terms of addressable markets. There is a lot of white space." Currently, the startup's product is operational across several countries in the world including the UK, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. However, 85% of its revenue continues to come from the United States, where it had initially launched, while 5% comes from India.
