Netradyne, the Bangalore-based artificial intelligence (AI) technology company has raised $21 million (Rs 133 crore) in new Series B funding. The company says this funding will help it further accelerate AI innovation that will contribute to improving road and driver safety.

The company says the investors in the Series B round include Reliance Industries (through its subsidiary RIIHL), which had previously invested $16 (Rs 101 crore) million during Netradyne’s Series A round of funding, M12, Microsoft’s corporate venture arm, and Point72 Ventures. M12 led the investment round and will now hold a role on the board, bringing additional resources and expertise focused on scaling the company.

Mathew Oommen, President Technology, Networks at RJIL, Reliance’s digital communications and services venture said: “Reliance is committed to fostering an ecosystem by investing ahead and in enabling intelligent connectivity solutions for the future of hyper connectivity. The follow up funding underscores our commitment to Netradyne’ s engineering talent working on cutting edge technologies in the fields of AI and machine Learning.”

Samir Kumar, managing director, M12, said: “We’re excited about our investment in Netradyne, an innovative company that we believe has the ability to create a safe new driving standard for commercial vehicles. Netradyne’s ‘Driveri’ system uses deep learning and computer vision at the edge, enabling rich contextual insights that help fleets establish safe driving practices.”

Sri Chandrasekar, Partner at Point72 Ventures, said: "The customer momentum Netradyne has generated over the last year speaks volumes about their AI team and the innovative products they continue to develop. We are excited to be a part of the team as they transform the driver safety industry.”

The technology company is emerging as a technology innovator, utilising AI, Machine Learning (ML), and Edge Computing to significantly enhance road and driver safety.  The company says the additional investment will be utilised to expand the team that has created early success for its product, Driveri, which is a vision-based driver recognition and fleet safety platform that captures and analyses every minute of every driving experience, providing commercial fleet managers with insights into positive driving and identifying opportunities for individual coaching.  The result helps in reducing driving incidents, more awareness around risk and ability to reward positive driving, all of which improves driver retention.

With the Series B funding, Netradyne says it will be making a sizable investment in the application of AI and deep learning in new industry segments including –

• Dynamic 3D/HD Mapping, which provides real-time, crowdsourced, high definition (HD) maps using commercially deployed Driveri devices. The HD maps enable improved transportation data analytics and autonomous vehicle research and development.
• Data analytics gives real-time insight into numerous aspects of driving, including road conditions, driver behaviors, unique driving scenarios, seasonal and weather-specific considerations, traffic patterns and concentrated geographic risk areas.
• Insurance: transforms analysed data into comprehensive offerings insurance companies can use to underwrite and analyse professional drivers across the country.

“In a very short period of time, Netradyne has made major strides in commercializing next generation AI in ways that deliver tangible impact to real businesses. We look forward to the next chapter in Netradyne’s growth where we extend our value proposition within the commercial fleet industry, while creating new paths into emerging technology segments,” said Avneesh Agrawal, founder and CEO, Netradyne.