Connected Vehicle Software Platform Developer Sibros Raises $70 Million in Series B Funding Round

author: Eric Walz   

Silicon Valley startup Sibros, a developer of a connected vehicle software platform for automakers, announced it closed on a $70 million Series B funding round led by investment firm Energy Impact Partners (EIP) with participation from Fontinalis Partners, Google, Iron Pillar, Qualcomm Ventures and existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Moneta Ventures. 

The company said the funding will be used for its expansion to meet strong global demand and deliver large customer deployments of its vertically integrated connected vehicle platform.

The Sibros connected vehicle platform is designed to help automakers keep their connected vehicles continuously updated, while at the same time collecting relevant data to improve functionality and features. 

"Today is an incredible milestone for Sibros as we welcome some of the most influential names invested in the future of clean energy, cloud and autotech who join our mission of powering the connected vehicle ecosystem with a vertically integrated solution," said Hemant Sikaria, CEO and co-founder of Sibros. "The past two years have been a period of extreme growth at Sibros as we track towards being deployed on many millions of vehicles and we're thrilled to have the support of investors who believe in our team and understand the problem we are solving."

Connected and autonomous vehicles of the future will generate massive amounts of data that will be sent to and from the cloud. In addition to being fully-connected and capable of autonomous driving, these vehicles will support over-the-air software updates as well as remote diagnostics. But managing all of this vehicle data will be a new challenge for automakers, so they are turning to tech startups like Sibros with expertise in software and cloud data management.

The Sibros platform allows for full vehicle OTA software updates in a single ecosystem that can run on any vehicle architecture, according to the company.

Sibros' OTA Deep Logger, for example, connects vehicles to the cloud and allows automakers to collect real world driving data from all of a vehicle's sensors. The Deep Logger software can gather data from every ECU and network domain in a vehicle. It provides automakers with deep-level access and data insights into their vehicles that's never been available before.

As automakers begin a transition to software-defined vehicles that can be updated as easily as a smartphone, they are faced with the challenges of scaling it across a complex ecosystem of suppliers, software, and data dependencies, according to Sibros. 

This complexity is further increased with the numerous safety and security requirements that connected vehicles require, especially those that are capable of autonomous driving. Sibros says its software adheres to all key functional safety, cybersecurity and data privacy requirements. The company's software also automates workflows to support full vehicle over-the-air software updates and data collection.

By connecting software and data seamlessly from vehicle-to-cloud in one vertically integrated system, Sibros can help automakers accelerate time-to-market, reduce code defects and enable hundreds of connected vehicle use cases at global scale. The Sibros software platform can also help OEMs reduce recalls and warranty claims by fixing any issues remotely with software updates.

In addition to supporting OTA software updates, the Sibros Deep Logger offers advanced data abstraction, filtering and logging rules, with up to 95% log file compression, which can reduce vehicle-to-cloud cellular, compute resources and data storage costs by up to 60%, according to Sibros. The advanced filtering rules allow automakers to only collect the data they need from the vehicle.

Although the use of connected vehicle technologies has risen over the past decade, deploying it and keeping it updated while only using a limited number of vehicle architectures requires novel engineering and professional services. It's this type of service that Sibros provides to automakers and OEMs. The company recently announced two new partnerships.

In Sept 2021, commercial electric truck manufacturer Volta Trucks announced that Sibros is providing the connected software-based platform for its Volta Zero truck, the world's first fully-electric 16-ton truck purposely built for urban freight delivery.

Two months later in November, Sibros announced a new collaboration with Netherlands-based electric vehicle startup Lightyear, a developer of an innovative solar-powered electric vehicle named the "Lightyear One".

Lightyear will integrate Sibros' Deep Logger, which will allow the company to collect real world driving data from all of the Lightyear One's sensors, as well as the ability to perform remote diagnostics and update the vehicle's sub systems remotely.

"Sibros sits in the center of the connected and electrified vehicle future with its impressive team and disruptive product that makes automotive software and data work better together," said Shawn Cherian, Partner at EIP, who is joining the Sibros Board of Directors. "Our investment in Sibros aligns with our pursuit of partnering with companies that solve unique challenges at the intersection of mobility and electrification."

Sibros was founded in 2018 by Sikaria. Prior to founding the company, he spent 5+ years at electric automaker Tesla designing and implementing the company's pioneering OTA software update platform, which now supports the entire Tesla fleet. 

The Sibros Deep Connected Software platform was named 2021 "Connected Car Platform of the Year'' by IoT Breakthrough Awards, which recognizes innovative companies, IoT products and services.

Eric Walz

Originally hailing from New Jersey, Eric is a automotive & technology reporter covering the high-tech industry here in Silicon Valley. He has over 15 years of automotive experience and a bachelors degree in computer science. These skills, combined with technical writing and news reporting, allows him to fully understand and identify new and innovative technologies in the auto industry and beyond. He has worked at Uber on self-driving cars and as a technical writer, helping people to understand and work with technology.