The deal is expected to advance Woven Alpha’s Automated Mapping Platform initiative
Spatial AI company Carmera to be acquired by Woven Planet. (Credit: Business Wire)
Woven Planet, a subsidiary of Toyota Motor, has agreed to acquire Carmera, a US-based spatial artificial intelligence (AI) company, for an undisclosed price.
Carmera is working on bringing the next-generation road intelligence to automated mobility at scale.
The company offers a video monitoring telematics service for professional fleets for enhancing the safety as well as productivity of high coverage vehicles on the road.
Upon closing of the deal, Carmera’s team will report into Woven Alpha’s Automated Mapping Platform (AMP) organisation.
Woven Alpha, which is part of Woven Planet, is engaged in exploring new strategic areas for business growth. The company incubates various innovative projects like Woven City and Arene, which is the open software platform of Woven Planet.
Automated Mapping Platform is a connected software platform that helps in creating, developing, and distributing high definition (HD) maps, which are important for enabling smart and safe automated mobility.
Woven Alpha intends to develop the crowdsourced software platform as the most inclusive road and lane network HD map platform in the world for offering high-precision localisation support to automated vehicles.
Carmera CEO and co-founder Ro Gupta said: “Woven Planet and AMP have been highly aligned with Carmera’s culture and mission from the beginning. Our teams have a common view of the unmet need for ubiquity in advanced mobility data going forward, including maps.
“Woven Planet, thanks to its software-first automotive DNA, shares our commitment to the end-user—to creating a technology stack that can be used safely and without friction by all stakeholders from data originators through to data consumers.”
The acquisition of Carmera will speed up Automated Mapping Platform’s transition from the research and development (R&D) stage to the next phase of commercialisation by strengthening the latter’s engineering team with leading experts in the development of HD maps.
Additionally, the acquisition will give it access to Carmera’s sophisticated map update and change management along with Internet of Things (IoT) sensing technology.
Woven Planet automated driving strategy and mapping vice president Mandali Khalesi said: “Carmera’s software stack, which is focused on real-time HD map changes and proprietary hardware custom-tailored to crowdsourcing, is an ideal complement to AMP’s mapping efforts. In addition, their world-class experts will allow us to bring forward the execution of key strategic milestones and jumpstart operations in the United States.”
Carmera marks the second major deal signed by Woven Planet in North America after its agreement to acquire Level 5, the self-driving division of Lyft, for $550m.