KeepTruckin is a hardware and software developer company. It helps trucking fleets manage vehicle, cargo, and driver safety. It has recently raised $190 million in a Series E funding round, which puts the company’s valuation at over $2 billion, according to CEO Shoaib Makani. KeepTruckin is the leader in fleet management technology, today announced that it has raised $190 million in new funding from G2 Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Greenoaks, IVP, Scale Venture Partners, funds managed by BlackRock, and several other leading investors. The round values the company at over $2 billion.
It intends to invest its new capital back into its AI-powered products like its GPS tracking, ELD compliance and dispatch, and workflow, but it’s specifically interested in improving its smart dashcam, which instantly detects unsafe driving behaviors like cell phone distraction and closes following and alerts the drivers in real-time, according to Makani.
Co-founder and CEO Makani says, “KeepTruckin’s special sauce is that we can build complex models (that other edge cameras can’t yet run) and make it run on the edge with low-power, low-memory, and low-bandwidth constraints”.
The platform includes smart annotation capabilities to automatically label the different data points so the neural network can play with millions of potential situations, achieving similar performance to the edge device that’s in the field with real-world environmental conditions, according to Makani.
Since the pandemic, the company said it experienced 70% annualized growth, in large part due to expansion into new markets like construction, oil and gas, food and beverage, field services, moving and storage, and agriculture. KeepTruckin expects this demand to increase and intends to use the fresh funds to scale rapidly and recruit more talent that will help progress its AI systems, doubling its R&D team to 700 people globally with a focus on engineering, machine vision, data science, and other AI areas, says Makani.
“We think packaging these products into operator-friendly user interfaces for people who are not deeply technical is critical, so front-end and full-stack engineers with experience building incredibly intuitive mobile and web applications are also a high priority,” said Makani.
Much of its tech will eventually power autonomous vehicles to make roads safer, says Makani, something that’s also becoming increasingly relevant as the demand for trucking continues to outpace the supply of drivers.
“Level 4 and eventually level 5 autonomy will come to the trucking industry, but we are still many years away from broad deployment,” he said. “Our AI-powered dashcam is making drivers safer and helping prevent accidents today. While the promise of autonomy is real, we are working hard to help companies realize the value of this technology now.”
Investors said they are backing the firm because of its vision to use those services “to fundamentally improve the safety and sustainability of commercial vehicles through novel hardware and software,” Zach Barasz, partner at G2 Venture Partners, said in a blog post. “We know that an inflection point is coming in this industry: the proliferation of AI-powered cameras into all commercial vehicles and it has the team and the highest quality products to lead the field. The opportunities for KeepTruckin are endless, and we can’t wait to see what the company cracks the code for next.”
The company plans to spend its new capital to continue building innovative AI-powered products, recruiting top-tier talent, and scaling rapidly to meet the needs of businesses that power the physical economy, the company said. The new capital will support KeepTruckin’s strategic priorities by allowing it to continue building innovative AI-powered products, recruiting top-tier talent, and scaling rapidly to meet the needs of businesses that power the physical economy.
