Varroc Engineering to acquire Pune-based start-up CarIQ

Aurangabad-based Varroc Engineering is looking to expand its offerings for the automotive industry, despite challenging conditions in the domestic auto market. The Board of Directors today approved acquiring a 74 percent stake in the Pune-based CarIQ Technologies platform.

CarIQ was founded by Sagar Apte and Deepak Thomas in 2013, with an aim to equip automobiles with intelligent features that are standard in many cars abroad. The company's USB-like device connects to the internet when it gets plugged into the port of a car under the steering wheel, and tracks parameters such as coolant temperature, service alerts and engine load, continuously giving feedback to the driver.

The tracking of the data allows the vehicle user to be alerted if there is any fault. Once an error is detected, it connects nearby service centres with the vehicle owner thereby averting parts failure.

The CarIQ platform uses the robust Microsoft Azure Cloud and is capable of handling tens of thousands of cars. The platform receives data from multiple sources via the Data Aggregator layer, where it is transformed and consumed by the platform. Big Data analysis is done on the stored data and the platform also integrates with external services for adding more knowledge using external data sources. The services layer acts as the layer to the outside world who are consumers of this data - reports, apps and enterprises being some of the existing consumers of this rich data set.

CarIQ is one of the few Indian tech start-ups that pioneered technology solutions for connected mobility. CarIQ’s proprietary solution is a seamless combination of hardware, software and IoT platform that enables safer driving, optimizing uptime and personal and commercial mobility. Its data analytics platform helps gather engineering data from a car into useful format for vehicle users, OEMs, fleet owners and Insurance Companies. CarIQ platforms have so far analyzed driving patterns for more than 90 million+ kms spread across 50,000+ drivers.

This acquisition will complement Varroc’s connected vehicle product offerings such as instrument clusters, telematic devices and other data based analytical products.

Commenting on the deal, Arjun Jain, President – Electrical & Electronics business at Varroc, said, “Varroc’s direction, even in a softer market, is to drive growth by leveraging automotive trends that will remain constant, trends like the desire to be greener, safer, smarter and more connected. We see our collaboration with CarIQ and the capabilities we will build together and share as a crucial part of both our current and future product strategy.”

Sagar Apte, CEO, CarIQ, and Hrishikesh Nene, CTO, CarIQ, added: “This partnership opens new possibilities for our customers and partners who trust us to build scalable enterprise grade solutions. Together with Varroc, we have ambitious plans to bring affordable and meaningful solutions for the automotive space in India and abroad.”

Varroc Engineering has not disclosed the transaction details.

Also read: Varroc Engineering bags first order from TVS, may bag more from Tesla