Weilai Automotive North America CEO "joins" a new company

Photo by Ethan Miller/ Getty Images

Zendrive, a start-up focused on driving analysis, recently welcomed a heavyweight: Padmasree Warrior. Warrior is the CEO of NextEV North America and now joins the Zendrive board of directors and becomes a member of the company’s board of directors.

Warrior was the CTO of Motorola and Cisco and joined Weilai Motors last year. Founded by former Google employees Jonathan Matus and Pankaj Risbood, Zendrive is a software company based on the user's mobile phone to analyze user driving behavior.

Jonathan has worked on mobile platforms. Pankaj Risbood has a background in big data analysis. The two entrepreneurs are favored by investors. They include BMW, investment firm Sherpa Capital and PayPal founder Max Levchin.

Zendrive core member

In August 2013, Zendrive has obtained a US$1.5 million investment in the absence of any product launch; in 2014 it obtained a new round of investment, but did not disclose the amount of financing, BMW i Ventures was its main investor; 2016 In February, the company received another 13.5 million round A round of investment, led by Sherpa Capital.

The basic idea is Zendrive means of a sensor on the phone to quantify the driving behavior of the driver, and then use the data obtained to improve the driving skills of the driver, which in this car and do not need to read data connection via hardware.

This set of software can achieve vehicle positioning, driving behavior analysis (including driving speed, acceleration, steering, braking, driving hours, route data, etc.), collision detection and other functions, but also analyze the user's driving behavior and give suggestions for improvement. The resulting information will generate a Driver Profile.

The driver's profile can show the driver’s driving level, such as driving a score for the driver, who is the “driver” and who is the “killer on the street”.

Some of Zendrive's features are similar to those of map software such as Google Maps. According to Jonathan's description, their products can not only evaluate the driver's driving level, but also use external channels (maps, traffic information, etc.) to remember them often. Where to go, recommend the best time and route.

At present, Zendrive has developed a management system that mainly provides three types of services:

Team management, driving behavior, positioning, etc.

Collision detection alarm, notify emergency contacts;

Insurance business, analyze driving data and give insurance advice.

In addition, the Zendrive team has also opened the SDK to developers. Customers who have customized products interface and functions need to open their APIs. Last year, the Zendrive collision detection function has been used by developers in products through the open SDK. For example, companies such as BMW, Luxe, and Pioneer use Zendrive's SDK when developing apps.

As for why Warrior joined Zendrive and served on the board of directors of this company, there was not much news from outside.

For Warrior's joining, Jonathan said that the former has multiple professional skills and backgrounds. "You can understand both the business and the coordination of cutting-edge technology." As head of a car startup company, Warrior will provide constructive advice to Zendrive.

Weilai cars are also currently using automatic driving, and Zendrive hopes to use sensors such as sensors, gyroscopes, and GPS to make roads safer, capture and analyze driving data, and train drivers to use automatic driving better. Zendrive is advancing cooperation with commercial fleets and insurance companies and hopes that the driver's driving data can be applied to automatic driving.

For future autonomous driving, Warrior stated that Zendrive's business will be the best entry point for autonomous driving. She believes that self-driving cars will enter another important development platform in the future, such as building risk models and safety technology reserves for autonomous driving, and working with cities and policy makers to improve road safety. These are the support Zendrive can provide.

Will Zendrive's application be used on prototype cars from Weilai? There should be preliminary answers at the end of this year.