Vinli, a Dallas, Texas-based connected car company, announced it has raised $13.5 million in additional funding. The Series B funding round included new and existing investors such as E.ON, The Westly Group, Hersh Family Investments, and Hal Brierley. Konrad Augustin — who is an investment director at E.ON Scouting and Co-Investments — and Kenneth Hersh are joining Vinli’s board of directors.
And with this funding round, Vinli will be adding electric vehicles to its data intelligence platform called Era. Plus Vinli is going to broaden its mobility services and integrations to customers worldwide. Era is a machine learning platform that facilitates the streaming from any data source into a secure and intelligent location. And this technology brings increased transparency of data, predictive visibility, and real-time business and consumer insights.
“The investment validates our place in the industry. In the last five years, we have seen the industry unfold and evolve into an industry driven by digital services,” said Mark Haidar, CEO of Vinli. “Companies today need viable data solutions — not only to support the growing number of data sources, but to deliver on the multiple service offerings to their end customers. We’re focused on making it easier for large fleets and automakers to access smarter data intelligence. It’s in helping those partners scale and be successful is what we look forward to most at Vinli.”
This funding round will deepen Vinli’s strategic partnership with E.ON. And it marks Vinli’s first collaboration with an energy company. E.ON is going to leverage Era to broaden electric mobility offerings and tailor solutions for electric fleets.
“With the information from the car itself, we are closing a gap in our data world for eMobilty. By combining customer vehicle and network data, we can identify trends at an early stage and will continually create new digital mobility offerings for our customers. Beyond the competitive advantage, we see Vinli as an attractive investment. The company is the global innovation leader in a technology of the future,” added Frank Meyer, Senior Vice President Innovation and Customer Solutions at E.ON.
Vinli recently reported a strong fourth quarter of revenue growth and profitability. The company also has a global strategic partnership with ALD Automotive for making connected services available to its global fleet of 1.6 million vehicles.
