Carmera

Carmera is a mapping service. The company uses data obtained by crowdsourcing from its fleet monitoring product to keep these AV cards up to date. The product for fleets is a telematic service and video monitoring service used by professional fleets that want to manage their risks and improve the safety of their cars and drivers.

History

2021: Toyota bought Carmera

July 15, 2021 it became known about the sale of Carmera to the Japanese auto giant Toyota. The latter made a deal through a subsidiary of Woven Planet Holdings, created specifically to invest, develop and subsequently market future transport technologies such as unmanned driving.

Under the terms of the deal, Carmera will become a subsidiary of Woven Planet. The team will continue to work in offices in New York and Seattle, and according to CEO James Kaffner, will be integrated into Woven Planet's growing 1,000-member facility.

Toyota acquired Carmera

Carmera, in essence, will become the American outpost of the Woven Planet Automated Mapping Platform (AMP) team, headquartered in Tokyo. Ro Gupta, co-founder and CEO of Carmera, will report to Mandali Khalesi, who heads AMP.

As of mid-July 2021, Carmera has been collaborating with the Toyota Research Institute-Advanced Development for 3 years, which prompted the creation of Woven Planet. At first, the startup participated in a pilot concept project in Japan to develop automation based on high-definition camera maps for urban and land roads. Then the partnership expanded to include mapping the carriageways of Detroit and other roads in Michigan, as well as in Japan.

The purchase of Carmera was announced less than 2 months after Woven Planet Holdings acquired Lyft's autonomous car division for $550 million.

The acquisition of Lyft and Carmera is only a small part of Woven Planet's huge amount of activity, as the automaker initially seeks to gain a competitive advantage over established rivals, especially in the field of software development. The holding itself includes 2 more operating companies called Woven Alpha and Woven Core, as well as a venture fund called Woven Capital.^[1]

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