Israel’s Nexar Raises $30M To Expand Safe Driving Tech

January 24, 2018 | Israeli startup Nexar announced on Wednesday that it closed a $30 million Series B funding round, led by Ibex Investors, with participation from Alibaba Innovation Ventures, Nationwide Insurance and previous investors Aleph, Mosaic Ventures, Slow Ventures, True Ventures, and Tusk Ventures. Co-founded by CEO Eran Shir, a former manager of Yahoo’s Creation Innovation Center in Israel, and CTO Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz, Nexar uses smartphones to create an AI-backed vehicle-to-vehicle network that works to predict and prevent accidents. Nexar leverages “millions of crowd-sourced road miles jointed with sensor-fusion, deep-learning, and map-layering technologies” to provide “real-time alerts to prevent vehicle, cyclist, and pedestrian collisions.” Nexar said in a statement that it will use the funds “to further its mission of eliminating car crashes and expand its vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) network by working with insurers, cities, and automakers.” Nexar’s app, launched in 2016, is used in 740 cities across 160 countries, according to the company. Its biggest markets are in New York City, San Francisco, Tel Aviv, and Las Vegas. Nexar also announced the appointments of Yoad Shraybom, a former Disney executive, as the new chief financial officer, and veteran technology executive Marc Gaffan as chief business officer.