Alternative yet environment-friendly fuels (Electric, Hydrogen, etc.) are not the only revolutions taking place in the world of mobility. OEMs have also started harnessing the power of the Internet of Things (IoT) and data to improve modern-day vehicles’ performance, maintenance, and efficiency.
Technology, in a nutshell, is no more limited to tracking the location of a car. It can not only point out what’s wrong with a vehicle, but in advanced systems, it can diagnose faults too. All of this has become possible because of the mammoth amount of data generated by a vehicle.
Nesh LIVE, which started as a bootstrapped company about seven years ago, is now reporting annual recurring revenue (ARR) subscriptions touching $1 million. The company focuses on just one thing - enabling automakers with technology that can help them harness the power of data. Not willing to disclose the names of its clients because of non-disclosure agreements, the company noted that it has been working with some of the top names from India’s commercial vehicle industry for over six years now.
“We closely work with automotive manufacturers. We help them collect data from vehicles. Nesh LIVE has generated data from close to two billion miles,” Venkat Nathan, Founder & CEO, Nesh LIVE, told Mobility Outlook in an exclusive conversation.
Data - The New Oil
The data that the company collects for different OEMs are sent to the cloud, where it is stored and analysed. Nathan refers to this collaboration with automakers as an ‘automotive IoT play.’ The capabilities that Nesh LIVE’s solution provides to OEMs are then used by the OEMs as a feature in the vehicles they sell. Some of the data points that Nesh LIVE’s solutions enable include engine health, mileage, battery health, driving behaviour, location, etc. The company has equipped its solutions in about 100,000 vehicles till now. It has a forecast of equipping 100,000 more vehicles with its solutions within 18 months from now.
“Data is the new oil, and we are the company that extracts and processes it. We then store and supply the purest form of data in barrels for people and companies to consume. We convert the crude data into a form that can be consumed to make products better,” he said.
Nathan, and the rest of the Nesh LIVE team, despite knowing that the solutions they offer can be a good fit in the B2B side of the automotive aftermarket, do not want to pitch the solutions to anyone other than OEMs. He explains ‘conflict of interest’ as the reason behind not targeting the aftermarket. The company, however, is planning to introduce standalone solutions for individual owners.
Owners of the vehicles do not just use the data that the solutions capture; the same can be, and is being used by OEMs to drive research and development. The company claims that the solution is capable enough of reporting data around different components used in a vehicle. OEM’s service network is also given access to limited data for service and maintenance information.
“The end consumers could be fleet operators, commercial passenger vehicle owners, logistic providers, electric three-wheeler owners and more. It entirely depends on profile to profile,” he mentioned. The prices of the solutions sold by Nesh LIVE are not fixed and vary solution-to-solution.
He added, “The three dimensions of our offering create a win-win for everyone involved. The data generated can be used by the engineering team of the OEM to ascertain the health of the vehicle, warranty information, service intervals and a lot of other things. The data generated can be easily used by a company to fuel its R&D efforts.”
Commercial Category Drives Business
Nesh LIVE’s majority of the revenue is driven by the commercial vehicle category at the moment. Bifurcating the commercial vehicles category further, as Nathan pointed out, it is ICE vehicles that contribute 80% to his company’s revenue. Electric vehicles and industrial IoT contribute the rest, in which the electric three-wheelers constitute the majority.
“We are helping truck makers, bus makers, construction vehicle makers and more commercial segments of mobility in using the data their vehicles generate in the right way,” he explained.
With the increasing electric vehicle adoption, the company believes that this ratio of ICE and EV contributions to its revenue will change dramatically over time. As a result, he forecasts that the company will be able to generate more revenue from the electric mobility sector in three to five years from now.
The solutions provided to OEMs are charged based on a recurring revenue model. Most of the OEMs bundle Nesh LIVE’s service for a minimum of three years, which is also a standard warranty period in terms of commercial vehicles sold in India. While the company, in many cases, uses its own set of hardware and software to create these solutions, it also is open to using hardware provided by an OEM to activate the solution.
“We do not say that you have to use our hardware only. We are pretty flexible about what our customers want,” he pointed out.
International Expansion & B2C Market
Nesh LIVE is planning to enter international markets this year. Expansion plans for the company include foraying into the Middle East, Europe, and the electric vehicle category. The company is open to raising funds but is looking for strategic investors.
“We are looking to raise with some strategic investors who will provide us access to newer markets and segments within India and international markets as well,” he said.
The company is also gearing up to launch a B2C solution in India. Besides, it is also planning to work with insurance companies to help vehicle owners and OEMs grab better vehicle insurance quotes. In this possible collaboration, the company will be providing data explaining the driving behaviour of a driver or a vehicle owner. The idea is to offer low-cost insurance quotes to people with sincere driving habits.
“We are in the process of reaching out to insure tech companies who can provide vehicle insurance quotes based on driving behaviour. We also want to extend partnership proposals to finance firms who would be willing to finance vehicles that can be easily tracked in terms of location and health. Nesh LIVE aims to use data to reduce the risk profile associated with financing vehicles. If the vehicles are closely monitored, it covers the risk of recovering the capital for the finance company,” Nathan added.