China’s AutoBot gets $6M funding to take car analytics into top gear

Driving tracker gizmos are starting to multiply in number as quickly as fitness trackers. Alongside app-connected gadgets like Automatic, a startup from China is also hoping to persuade people to use data to adopt a more efficient driving style and look after their car. It’s called AutoBot

The startup team just revealed it has secured US$6 million in series A funding from Gobi Partners and ABC Capital. AutoBot’s Fendi Cheng tells Tech in Asia that the investment will go towards marketing and new product development, including a method “to combine automobile collision prevention systems with smart hardware.”

For now, AutoBot’s two products are the AutoBot Pro and Mini, both of which are focused on Chinese consumers and which come with apps for iOS and Android. “AutoBot’s target customer is typically in the age 25 to 40 demographic […] and have recently made their first car purchase,” says Cheng.

She adds that the biggest challenge for the young hardware startup is making people aware of the on-board diagnostic port – that’s the universal slot in virtually all new cars that all these auto data gizmos plug into. “Creating something new is bound to have many challenges. But for us, taking on these challenges has been one of the most enjoyable things about this endeavor,” Cheng notes.

Indienono, China-a-go-go

AutoBot first debuted on Indiegogo last summer, but the crowdfunding campaign didn’t go well, raising only US$869 from a goal of US$10,000. Cheng concedes that the team lacked experience in marketing to potential customers overseas. She explains:

For the AutoBot team, Indiegogo was a very meaningful experience. We ourselves are big fans of crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, having bought several items off of these two platforms in the past. So, once our first product was ready, we felt it would be a great idea to launch on one of these overseas crowdfunding sites.

Unfortunately, at that time, we were not ready for such a campaign. On the technical side, we found that Indiegogo did not offer the features we needed to build exposure. At the same time, we did not have prior experience in overseas market operations and lacked the PR and marketing infrastructure needed to be able to effectively raise attention for our campaign. Despite all of this, we still received meaningful feedback from our Indiegogo backers which will help us significantly when we expand overseas in the future.

That’s when the crew turned to their home market, running a new campaign on the crowdfunding part of Alibaba’s Taobao marketplace. “In December, we launched a crowdfunding campaign on Taobao, which generated over RMB 1 million [US$160,000] for the AutoBot Mini. Compared to the overseas campaign, we better understood the domestic audience’s needs and efficiently utilized PR and marketing resources to maximize the campaign’s impact. With the right tools in place, it demonstrated to us that there is a large market for our product and was a big confidence boost.”

Despite that, Cheng says they’re all open to the idea of crowdfunding and venturing overseas again in the future.