Video telematic startup LightMetrics raises $8.5 million from Sequoia Capital India

LightMetrics, a video telematics startup serving commercial vehicles, said it has raised $8.5 million in funding from Sequoia Capital India.

The startup sells software that analyses video feeds from cameras installed in vehicles to better understand driver behaviour, reduce accidents and improve safety.

What the funds will be used for


LightMetrics will use the funds to hire more people across the engineering, customer success, product, marketing, sales and analytics functions.

The company said that the funding will also be used to explore adjacent opportunities such as auto insurance.

LightMetrics was founded in 2015 by Soumik Ukil, Ravi Shenoy, Mithun Uliyar, Gururaj Putraya, Pushkar Patwardhan and Krishna A.G. The six-member founding team had worked together at Nokia Research on computer vision and ML for cameras.

Profitable since inception

Prior to this funding, LightMetrics had raised $1.8 million in two rounds led by Beenext. It has been profitable since inception.

Ukil told ET in an interaction that 90% of the company’s revenue comes from North America, but there is a lot of opportunity in newer markets such as India, Latin America and Africa. In the first four years, the company focused on the North American market, but in the last three years it has expanded into Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil and India.

Over the past year, the company has more than tripled its business and has about 2,500 commercial vehicles using its software.

How video analysis helps

“In the Western world, there’s a lot of liability associated with accidents, so cameras with recordings and footage help save expenses. It is statistically true that commercial vehicle drivers are actually not at fault in a majority of the cases,” he said.

The company does not build hardware but works with hardware makers to install the software and sell its product. The installation will have a two-way camera, one analysing the driver and the one keeping an eye on the external environment.

Ukil added that with the help of the startup’s artificial intelligence tools, commercial fleet operators can also prevent such accidents.

“They can actually prevent these accidents in the first place. So, for example, the dashcams that LightMetrics supports, they actually watch the driver. If they’re talking on the cell phone, or overspeeding, the software will alert … and we can see a marked reduction in accidents,” he said.