Pitstop, a prognostics platform for predicting vehicle failures before they happen, announced $1.5 million in seed financing as well as a pilot test program with Continental.
The funding round was led by Toronto-based VC fund Ripple Ventures with participation from WorldQuant Ventures, Hike VC, OCE and MD from Clairvest Michael Castellarin.
The program combines capabilities of the Pitstop Data Engine and the Continental Remote Vehicle Data (RVD) platform to provide real-time, actionable insights to the automotive industry, including the aftermarket, through a dashboard and mobile application. The combined data and prognostics tool can predict failures, prevent inefficiencies and reduce maintenance costs faced by the automotive industry, according to Toronto-based Pitstop.
“With the growth of the global automotive market, and the global connected-car market, expected to reach $280.36 billion by 2026, we are seeing predictive analytics play a vital role in reducing unexpected downtime and costs for businesses operating in this industry,” said Pitstop founder and CEO Shiva Bhardwaj. “As business models move from products to services, Pitstop is excited about exploring the opportunities presented by combining Continental’s RVD platform with our analytics solution, to help our clients navigate the changing transportation industry.”
The Pitstop prognostics platform aggregates automotive data and sends it to a secure remote server where algorithms, artificial intelligence and machine learning tools provide useful information about increasingly complex automotive systems, according to the company.
“Continental is excited to be working with Pitstop on the opportunities that combining Pitstop’s analytics platform with Continental’s RVD platform can bring to the automotive industry,” said Christopher Bahlman, head of diagnostics & services for the independent aftermarket segment of Continental’s Commercial Vehicles & Aftermarket Business Unit in North America.
