Traffic Camera Maker Obvio Lands $22 Million

<p><strong>SAN CARLOS<&sol;strong> &&num;8212&semi; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cts&period;businesswire&period;com&sol;ct&sol;CT&quest;id&equals;smartlink&amp&semi;url&equals;https&percnt;3A&percnt;2F&percnt;2Fwww&period;obvio&period;ai&percnt;2F&amp&semi;esheet&equals;54264743&amp&semi;newsitemid&equals;20250604221087&amp&semi;lan&equals;en-US&amp&semi;anchor&equals;Obvio&amp&semi;index&equals;1&amp&semi;md5&equals;4d9d8838274ac161158e8f04617d2f1a" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"nofollow noopener" shape&equals;"rect">Obvio<&sol;a>&comma; which improves traffic safety with an AI-powered traffic camera solution&comma; has landed &dollar;22 million in Series A funding led by Bain Capital Ventures&period; Additional investors include Khosla Ventures and Pathlight Ventures&period; With these funds&comma; Obvio will expand nationally and grow the team&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Traffic fatalities have accelerated over the last few years to become a national crisis&period; Each day in America&comma; more than 100 people are killed in traffic accidents &&num;8211&semi; more fatalities per mile driven than most high-income nations&period; This is the equivalent of a commercial airplane crashing daily&comma; but we don’t have to accept these fatalities as an inevitability&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Despite more than &dollar;35 billion of government funding spent in recent years&comma; traffic fatalities are still higher than pre-pandemic levels&period; This is because existing approaches – education&comma; engineering and limited enforcement – are grossly inadequate&period; Engineering projects like road diets and roundabouts cost millions of dollars and take years to complete&period; Education campaigns about traffic laws don’t elicit meaningful change&period; Amid an ongoing police staffing shortage&comma; there are not enough resources to allocate toward traffic enforcement to squash the most dangerous behaviors on the roadways&colon; phone-scrolling while driving&comma; failure to stop at stop signs&comma; and not yielding to pedestrians&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Obvio brings a new&comma; holistic solution to traffic safety&comma; giving municipalities and law enforcement the tools needed to change driver behavior and create a new culture of safety on the roadways&period; Obvio deploys solar-powered AI cameras to 1&rpar; detect a wide range of dangerous driving behavior&semi; 2&rpar; create visibility for community members&semi; and 3&rpar; enable law enforcement to automatically send citations to the most egregious violators&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Obvio was built to provide real accountability to drivers and avoid so many preventable injuries and fatalities&comma;” said Ali Rehan&comma; co-founder and CEO&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I see the need for change first hand&period; Every day I walk my daughter to school and see drivers blowing through stop signs&period; Even the crossing guards say they feel scared trying to keep children out of harm’s way&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In Prince George’s County&comma; Maryland&comma; after two children were struck and killed near a school&comma; Obvio partnered with local leaders to launch a first-of-its-kind stop sign camera program&period;<i> <&sol;i>Obvio measured thousands of drivers running stop signs during pick-up and drop-off hours and began sharing statistics with communities at portals like <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cts&period;businesswire&period;com&sol;ct&sol;CT&quest;id&equals;smartlink&amp&semi;url&equals;http&percnt;3A&percnt;2F&percnt;2Fletsdrivesafer&period;com&percnt;2Fmorningside&amp&semi;esheet&equals;54264743&amp&semi;newsitemid&equals;20250604221087&amp&semi;lan&equals;en-US&amp&semi;anchor&equals;letsdrivesafer&period;com&percnt;2Fmorningside&amp&semi;index&equals;2&amp&semi;md5&equals;8faf6877f63c51cf23d05aff037b400c" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"nofollow noopener" shape&equals;"rect">letsdrivesafer&period;com&sol;morningside<&sol;a>&period; The county used Obvio’s program to issue tickets&comma; which reduced stop sign running by 50&percnt; within eight weeks&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Even if I had 30 more officers&comma; I wouldn’t be able to accomplish what we did with Obvio&comma;” said Dan Franklin&comma; police chief of Morningside&comma; Maryland&comma; which is in Prince George’s County&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are moving closer to our 100&percnt; stop sign compliance goal &&num;8211&semi; this has made both my residents and elected officials very happy&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Existing traffic safety technology has not been updated in more than 25 years&period; Obvio presents the opportunity to apply cutting-edge technology to address a national crisis&comma; while keeping safety and privacy top of mind&period; Obvio’s intelligent cameras only collect necessary information and have privacy intelligence on each device&period; For example&comma; footage that is not a traffic violation is automatically blurred or deleted and only critical information is shared with municipalities and law enforcement&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Co-founders Ali Rehan and Dhruv Maheshwari met at Motive&comma; where they built AI camera technology to help more than 200&comma;000 commercial fleet drivers drive more safely&period; Ali&comma; a second-time founder&comma; incubated Motive’s industry-leading safety dashcam business&comma; with Dhruv joining Motive from Google’s Augmented Reality team&period; After recognizing that Motive technology helped truck drivers reduce crashes&comma; they are now applying those learnings and technology to public safety&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Obvio aims to usher in a new paradigm of how cameras should be thoughtfully used in society&period; Its cameras can transform how governments and communities understand their own roadways&period; The company is doing so by solving technical challenges across computer vision&comma; hardware design and operations&comma; while having a positive impact on residents and municipalities&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We were impressed to see the thoughtfulness by which the founders&comma; Ali and Dhruv&comma; were approaching communities&colon; focusing on both safety and privacy&comma;” said Ajay Agarwal&comma; partner at Bain Capital Ventures&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It was this&comma; combined with product velocity and customer obsession&comma; which has led to steep growth and insane levels of customer and market pull&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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