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Fresh off of a successful launch in Europe, Smartcar announced that they’ll be moving forward with their expansion into Canada earlier this week – exciting news for the Canadian market, especially those involved in the mobility space.
Already working with some well-known Canadian customers, Smartcar now has an early access program open to all Canadian businesses.
Who’s taken the leap so far?
- Turo: The car sharing company is using Smartcar technology to test out secure, keyless rentals for customers
- Pitstop: A fleet management company that offers a cloud-based predictive maintenance platform is using Smartcar to offer a hardware-free solution that provides accurate data to its customers.
- ACE Marktplace: A lot management software is leveraging Smartcar’s API to provide another hardware-free solution to allow car dealerships to manage their inventory more easily.
What is Smartcar?
Smartcar offers an API for businesses to easily connect with their customer’s vehicles and obtain information such as location data, vehicle mileage, EV battery life, and much more.
The platform is also able to trigger actions such as allowing customers to lock and unlock a vehicle from their phone by sharing their digital keys.
The benefit of Smartcar is that it’s a hardware-free, unified platform.
Overall, the API boasts compatibility with 20 different car brands such as BMW, Tesla, and Ford, which translates into roughly 60 million cars.
In Canada, Smartcar is currently compatible with close to 10 car brands and has a strong focus on continuing to add more brands.
Based out of San Francisco, Smartcar was founded by Sahas Katta and Sanketh Katta in 2015 and has since raised $12 million from Andreessen Horowitz and New Enterprise Associates.
So What’s Next?
It’s no secret that the mobility industry is evolving right before our eyes with an emphasis on advanced digital features and capabilities along with an increased adoption of electronic vehicles.
Smartcar unlocks capabilities that were previously unavailable or required passing through several hurdles to accomplish similar tasks.
We are excited to see how Canadian businesses will utilize Smartcar to enhance their offerings in traditional industries such as insurance in addition to potentially creating brand new products in the ever-changing mobility space.
With a continued focus on development, expect Smartcar to continue to roll out new features and capabilities via their platforms and APIs, allowing the innovation to continue.