Smartcar, Inc. is a software company based in

Mountain View, California Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the population was 82,376 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mountain V ...

. It allows

software developer Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

s to locate, unlock, and read data from

vehicle A vehicle () is a machine designed for self-propulsion, usually to transport people, cargo, or both. The term "vehicle" typically refers to land vehicles such as human-powered land vehicle, human-powered vehicles (e.g. bicycles, tricycles, velo ...

s using an

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

History

Smartcar was founded in 2014 by Sahas and Sanketh Katta. In December 2014, the company raised $2 million in

seed funding Seed money, also known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor puts capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' suggests ...

led by

Andreessen Horowitz AH Capital Management, LLC (commonly known as Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z) is an American privately held venture capital firm, founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California. As of M ...

. In March 2018, the company announced a

series A round A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in excha ...

of $10 million led by

New Enterprise Associates New Enterprise Associates (NEA) is an American-based venture capital firm. NEA focuses investment stages ranging from seed stage through growth stage across an array of industry sectors. With over $25 billion in committed capital, NEA is one of t ...

(NEA) with participation from Andreessen Horowitz. In July 2018, Smartcar emerged from

stealth Stealth may refer to: Military *Stealth technology, technology used to conceal ships, aircraft, and missiles **Stealth aircraft, aircraft which use stealth technology ** Stealth ground vehicle, ground vehicles which use stealth technology ** Ste ...

and launched

documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance, and use. As a form of knowledge managem ...

and SDKs for integrating Smartcar’s API into

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a smartphone, phone, tablet computer, tablet, or smartwatch, watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop appli ...

s and

web application A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

s. In April 2019, Smartcar accused rival

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to ...

Otonomo of API

plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...

. As of June 2020,

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

ists

Forest Baskett Forest Baskett (born May 11, 1943) is an American venture capitalist, computer scientist and former professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University. He is a venture capitalist at New Enterprise Associates. Baskett designed the operati ...

(NEA) and William Krause (Andreessen Horowitz) were serving on Smartcar’s

board of directors A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...

. In January 2022, the company announced a Series B round of $24 million with John Tough of Energize Ventures joined the board of directors along with NEA and a16z reinvesting.

API

Smartcar’s API can be integrated into mobile and web applications. The app requires the user to agree to share specific vehicle

telematics Telematics is an interdisciplinary field encompassing telecommunications, vehicular technologies (road transport, road safety, etc.), electrical engineering (sensors, instrumentation, wireless communications, etc.), and computer science (multimedia ...

information with the mobile or web application which, according to Smartcar, allows the user to locate and unlock the vehicle, check its mileage, fuel level and

electric-vehicle battery An electric vehicle battery is a rechargeable battery used to power the electric motors of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) or hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). They are typically lithium-ion batteries that are designed for high power-to-we ...

remotely from the application without the need for an

on-board diagnostics On-board diagnostics (OBD) is a term referring to a vehicle's self-diagnostic and reporting capability. In the United States, this capability is a requirement to comply with United States vehicle emission standards, federal emissions standards ...

device. Smartcar’s customers include Samsung SmartThings, Turo, the state of

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

, and Aventi. In August 2020, Smartcar and Canadian firm Pitstop entered into a partnership to create hardware-free maintenance tracker for fleet vehicles.

References

{{reflist Software companies of the United States Software companies established in 2015