Daybreak - Driverless trucks have pushed India’s first unicorn of 2025 into an existential crisis

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

In January this year, Netradyne, the logistics AI startup, became India’s first unicorn of 2025 after it raised $90 million in series D funding. You see, it did not take it long to realise that its sweet spot is the long-distance trucking segment. It serves over 3,000 customers across eight countries, including the likes of Amazon, Shell, Indian Oil and Greenline Mobility. And it all began with one rather primitive prototype. Of course, now it has morphed into a compact device with a built-in GPU, up to four cameras, and a disembodied voice alerting drivers not to crash the vehicle.The Ken reporter Abhirami G found herself in the backseat of one of Netradyne’s test cars in Bengaluru's Whitefield neighbourhood. The driver of the car was a Netradyne employee. And as he weaved through the traffic, the company’s signature always-on surveillance cameras didn’t just watch his every move, but also apparently “understood” and “analysed”. As he drove, he was generating the precious training data that powers the company’s bread and butter. Apart from making roads safer, this whole system also doubles up as a driver’s best legal defence in times of trouble. The company’s executive Vice president of Engineering Teja Gudena said that on multiple occasions, it has saved drivers from liability by proving their innocence in accidents. Apart from its new-found unicorn status, it reportedly managed to clock Rs 1,000 crore in revenue in 2023. It also currently has a stronghold in the US and other major global markets. Reaching all of these milestones within nine years is pretty remarkable. But despite all that success, Netradyne is now grappling with an existential crisis. Because now, driverless vehicles are no longer science fiction, they are a logistical inevitability. And that leaves Netradyne in a rather tricky spot. Tune in.This episode was first published on Feb 13, 2025Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcast, you've probably heard me. My interruptions, my analogies and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret source stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production.

Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get alert, as soon as we release our first studio. episode, please follow intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcast or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. Nine years ago, when Stanford alumni, Avni Shakurval and David Julian decided to start their own company, they had one goal.

They wanted to use artificial intelligence to make roads around the world safer. And so, Netrodine was born. It all began with one scrappy prototype. They duct taped a smartphone to the windshield of a car and hooked it up to an Nvidia GPU. The idea was to be able to firm the driver as they navigated traffic and to generate safety alerts and feedback like slowdown or distracted driving. It was a novel idea for sure, but the initial setup, I think you'll agree, was pretty crude.

Yet, it was somehow supposed to revolutionize driver safety for a potential client. Back then, Agarwal and Julian vehemently believed that they were onto something. And turns out they were right. Just last month, their company became India's first unicorn of 2025 after it raised $90 million in Series D funding. You see, Netadine quickly realized that its sweet spot is the long-d-stranded. segment. It serves over 3,000 customers across eight countries, including the likes of Amazon, Shell, Indian Oil and Green Line mobility. And it all began with that one rather primitive prototype.

Of course, it has now morphed into a compact device with a built-in GPU, up to four cameras, and a disembodied voice alerting drivers to not crash the vehicle. The Ken reporter, my colleague Abiramiji, recently found herself in the backseat of one of Netrodine's test cars in Bangalore's Whitefield neighborhood. The drive of the car was a Netadine employee. And as he weaved through the traffic, the company's signature, always-on surveillance cameras, didn't just watch his every move, but were also understanding and analyzing. Because as he drove, he was generating precious training data that powers the company's

bread and butter, those safety alerts that we just spoke about. Apart from making roads safer, this whole system also doubles up. as a driver's best legal defense in times of trouble. The company's executive vice president of engineering, Teja Gudena, said that on multiple occasions, it has saved drivers from liability by proving their innocence in accidents. The company's model has taken it far, literally. Apart from its newfound unicorn status,

it reportedly managed to clock 1,000 crore rupees in revenue in 2023. It also currently has a stronghold in the US and other major. your markets. And crossing all of these milestones within a span of nine years is quite remarkable. But despite all that success, Netadine is now grappling with an existential crisis. Because now, driverless vehicles are no longer science fiction. They are a logistical inevitability. And that leaves Netrodine in a rather tricky spot. Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Nickda Sharma, and I Don't Chase news cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleague Rahal Philippos and I will come to you

with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Netodine has come a long way since its early prototype days. Today, it employs nearly 1,000 people across the world, manufactures its cameras in Gurgaon and has its own research and development facility in Bangalore. In the last nine years, it has managed to really up the ante in the driver's safety space. Good data explained to the Ken that before Netadine, there were companies that claimed to work in this space, but their definition was mostly centered around motion sensors with just cameras as backup. These were essentially dash cams connected to the cloud, but they didn't have any vision analytics, which is what gives Netadine an edge.

It integrates advanced computer vision, which enables real-time assessment of driver behavior directly on the device itself. In Goodena's words, just relying on motion sensors alone is like teaching a student 10 subjects but testing them on just two. And that vision seemed to have resonated with a bunch of commercial fleet operators. You see, at the end of the day, accidents are bad for business. Not only do they come with repair costs and rising insurance premiums, but also because a headline like X company's delivery van just crashed into a sedan is just going to make them look bad. So for the likes of Amazon, it is a matter of reputation, which is why Amazon has been Netadine's

client since 2021. And in the last four years, this technology has become integral to Amazon's massive operations across the US and beyond. Now, this is obviously the dream of any company in the driver safety space. A client like Amazon does not come easy. But at the same time, privacy advocates have raised alarms about the survey. implications of Netrodine's cameras. In fact, some angry drivers even called it Big Brother. Goudena, for his part, said Netadine is doing its best to balance safety and privacy. Like, the camera stopped recording when parked, but keep an eye out at stop signs. And while Goudena did not comment on Amazon specifically, he did admit that privacy expectations

vary widely among customers. So it is definitely a tricky place to be. But the comfort has bigger concerns. Driverless cars. More on that in the next segment. Natadine's pitch is pretty straightforward. No one else has the kind of road data that it does. It has billions of miles worth of data on road signs, driver behavior and just about every possible way someone can mess up behind the wheel. And this isn't just data from India. It is from around the world. And this is how Netterdyne has managed to position itself as a critical player in the race to perfect the algorithms of driverless vehicles from across continents. So you see, the more real-world scenarios that these algorithms will have to refine themselves, the safer driverless cars will become. And that

is what makes Netrodine coveted and unique. That is especially relevant as autonomous trucks edge closer to reality in the US. countries in the West are also making advancements in this department. In Germany, for instance, level four autonomous vehicles, which are the kind that need minimal human intervention, are now legally permitted to operate in designated areas. So in all likelihood, trucks are going to be the first wave of the self-driving revolution, considering they are generally following predictable routes and are operating on highways. But the thing is, once autonomous trucking takes off, Netrodine's biggest clients, trucking fleets, may not even need drivers anymore.

And that would mean no need for driver monitoring systems anymore, the lifeblood of Netrodine. And unsurprisingly, Amazon has already invested in autonomous trucking. It's definitely a potential threat to Netadine's business model, but according to two researchers from Qualcomm and IIT Madras that the Ken spoke to, it is not a big one. Because like I told you earlier, the biggest barrier to autonomous vehicles right now, ironically, is the very thing that Netadine has in spades, data. An autonomous driving algorithm is thirsty for deep, specific data about driving patterns. So, Netadine has a clear edge here.

It offers behavioral insights. So it won't just be mapping turns. It also maps how a driver typically navigates those turns. And that sort of nuanced, actionable data is invaluable at this point in time. That's already a head start. So how is Netrodine thinking about future-proofing its business? Stay tuned to find out. So the truth is that we are sometime away from truck automation.

Yes, optimistic forecasts predict its integration into commercial fleets by the end of the year, but reality doesn't quite match up. Shubedip Kumar, a former researcher in autonomous vehicles at IIT Madras explained that level four autonomous vehicles, which include commercial fleets, can only operate under strict constraints. In Germany, for example, they are allowed to use only one side of the road, kind of like a cycle lane. So pulling this off at a large enough scale that it matters is a whole different ballgame. Actually, the whole driverless vehicle sector has realized this and has been in quite a rut for the past few years. But the real wild card that has gotten people excited,

once again is Generative AI. Gen AI's ability to stimulate driving conditions that do not exist in real life has become a game changer for training autonomous software. And this is where Netadine appears to be hedging its bets. It claims to be building Gen AI models capable of predicting driving outcomes minutes in advance. But the tech comes with its own set of caveats. So experts like Kumar are skeptical. He says these models,

would work in countries with strict traffic rules. I mean, I don't even want to imagine how it would work in a country like India with our traffic. So naturally, for an Indian company like Netrodine, Kumar's criticism cuts deep, especially since now its most immediate challenge is staying relevant. One way to future proof itself could be by shifting the focus back to the home turf, because at the end of the day, India needs Netadine's technology more than most other countries. Every single year, close to 2,000 people die in road accidents here. But while Gudena says that India was always a significant market for the company, early acceptance of their product was way higher in the US and in the West.

Now, however, things seem to be changing. The company has been getting a lot more requests from India, and this could change things for it. Perhaps the next chapter of Netrodine won't just be about making trucks safe or autonomous vehicles smarter, but rather about figuring out how to thrive in markets where chaos is the default setting.

Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-undi offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com

and click on the red subscriber. button on top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted by Snigda Sharma and edited by Rajiv Siyah.