Drivemode has nabbed around $6.5 million in funding from a clutch of investors in its Series A round, which was led by Panasonic and also saw participation from insurance provider Mitsui Sumitomo’s VC arm, as well as Innovative Venture Fund Investment and Miyako Capital.
In case you are unaware of it, Drivemode is one of the most popular apps around for in-car usage. The app has had over one million downloads and has active users spread across 180 countries.
The app provides a hands-free interface to drivers that allows them to focus on driving without being distracted by stuff like voice calls, messaging and so on. The company will now focus upon using the newly found backup to expand its offering to beyond the consumer app.
Speaking with TechCrunch, Drivemode Founder and CEO Yo Koga said:
Obviously, Panasonic wants to utilize our popularity as a driving app when working with automakers. So what we’re working on now is integrating their infotainment systems with our consumer app so that we can work with hardware products like display audio or basic audio, consumers have a lot more to users via the consumer app. At the same time, a lot of automakers are also interested in white label stuff as well, so that we’re working on separately, as well.
He also commented over the fact that the Drivemode app was popular because it was good. Comparing it to Google’s own Android Auto application, Koga said that the latter had worse reviews than Drivemode. He also said that in many cases, the companies with great hardware lacked on the software front. A good interface was one of the biggest problems and doing stuff as simple as answering voice messages on Facebook could be a huge pain.
Drivermode launched the beta version of its application in 2014. Since then, the company has been working hard to bring improvements to the app in collaboration with the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA). Since it is all voice based, there isn’t really much danger of the drive taking his hands off the wheel to write a quick text. The NHTSA collaboration is a major step along the same direction.
