Higher value from the digital revolution
We are increasingly living in a digitalized world, at work, at home, and at play. Here, Idan Katz, Partner and Chief Technology Officer with Mobilion Ventures, discusses its use within the aftermarket and highlights innovative new service offerings it has helped to fund.
During the past decade our way of life has been revolutionized by digitalization. Our mobile phone has become our personal digital hub where we consume information via endless applications. The term ‘phone’ has been kept but our consumption of data has pushed mobile phone voice applications down the ladder, in favour of social, chatting and video apps.
Furthermore, we now expect these applications and services to bring us a higher value. For example, from the camera app we expect to have filters to improve the end result. For banking services, we expect actions such as payment, rather than just a current status report.
One of the new technologies enabling us to extract higher value and which is fuelling the digitization revolution is AI (Artificial Intelligence). With the help of AI machines are able to ‘learn’ and ‘understand’ data. By processing enormous amounts of data, AI algorithms converge into meaningful results, which are output in seemingly endless applications and services as a ‘smart conclusion’ based on the given data.
This digitalization revolution has reached the automotive world and will dramatically impact on it in many fields, such as driver assistance, autonomous driving, electric car, maintenance and support, and more.
Imagine a future service in which your car experiences some problem. The car communicates its data to an online service that will analyse and decide what the problem is, connect to the repair service which, based on the location, can guide the car to the nearest capable workshop or schedule the time and place for a repair. Furthermore, once the repair is booked the service system can pre-order the needed parts for the scheduled repair. These kinds of services will blur the line between offline and online customers and allow the service to be more proactive.
Mobilion Ventures’ mission is to spot these kinds of future trends and changes and invest and help innovative start-up companies aiming to bring new services and values in the global aftermarket automotive.
Here are three examples of new innovative services and products from Mobilion Ventures’ portfolio:
Damage detection and
repair estimation
You reach the hotel/restaurant valet
parking, handing over the keys to the worker for parking your car. Wouldn’t you
want to make sure when your car comes back it comes without any new dents or scratches?
How can you prove you gave the car without one? This same challenge is a daily
one for insurance companies, secondhand cars, rentals and fleet managers.
The start-up Click- ins developed a technology that allows you to use your mobile phone and automatically detect, analyse, and process vehicle damage with high precision and consistency and even evaluate the repair cost, if needed. Click-Ins’ customer base is growing with insurance companies, damage appraisal, car sharing and rental companies and more. This digitalization example includes usage of data images of the car, AI processing all packed in a SaaS (Software as a service) flexible interface.
Driver cognition monitoring
Many in-cabin
solutions that exist today use a rear facing camera to allow the detection of a
sleepy driver or a distracted driver. But there are problematic scenarios such
as driving after drinking or smoking cannabis that are usually not detected.
The notice of the detection is usually in a late stage which leaves little time
for response. Adam
CogTech built a cloud solution including an in-cabin product that is able to measure and
estimate the driver’s cognition. Therefore, Adam’s solution provides early
indications of cognitive impairment. Today’s challenging impaired scenarios due
to alcohol, substance abuse and fatigue are now safely covered.
Adam acquires in-cabin data from several sources, analyses them using AI and
brain tech science in order to introduce a new type of service, ‘Driver Cognition
Monitoring’.
Motorcycle rider assistance
Due to the Covid-19 epidemic and social distancing requirements, the number of motorcycles is on the rise. But dense urban transportation and the rider’s safety has become a major issue. Thus, the need for an ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System) is required. RideVision developed an automated driver assistance system designed specifically for motorcycles, utilizing advanced computer vision and AI algorithms. Its Collision Aversion Technology (CAT) is designed to seamlessly integrate with the motorcycles, utilizing only standard cameras as visual sensors. By collecting visual and telemetric data and analysing it, RideVision is able to assist riders with a safe journey.
Mobilion Ventures is the leading early stage venture capital fund that invests in smart mobility, with special focus on after-market innovative solutions and digital automotive services. Backed by a stellar team of strategic partners such as Nexus Automotive and investors from the global automotive industry, Mobilion Ventures opens the door for cutting-edge smart mobility and aftermarket innovators.
