Israeli start-up GreenRoad Technologies Ltd. has raised $10 million in a financing led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former US Vice President Al Gore's cleantech fund Generation Investment Management LLP. GreenRoad's current investors Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, Balderton Capital, Amadeus, and Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Green Ventures, participated in the round.
The company will use the proceeds to accelerate the deployment of its GreenRoad 360 service among existing and new customers.
GreenRoad CTO Ofer Raz and chief of safety Hod Fleishman founded the company in 2002. GreenRoad 360 is a proprietary technology-based service that provides drivers and fleet managers with real-time, comprehensive and preventative feedback, analysis, reporting and coaching on drivers’ abilities, maneuvers and patterns.
Fleishman told "Globes", "This may be our final financing round." He added that the company could become profitable soon.
GreenRoad derived its name from its color-coded technology: green indicates safe driving conduct; yellow; and red for dangerous driving. Furthermore, the company notes that driving behavior is the largest single contributor to driving safety and fuel efficiency and costs the US and Europe over $500 billion dollars per year. The company claims that a typical customer sees up to a 50% reduction in crash costs and up to a 10% reduction in fuel consumption within the first year.
GreenRoad is headquartered in Redwood Shores, near San Francisco, its R&D Center is in Or Yehuda in Israel, which has 90 employees. It also has sales offices throughout the US and UK. The CEO is Dan Steere. The company has raised $48 million to date, including the present financing round.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on February 22, 2010
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