Idelic Inc., a technology startup recently spun off by Pitt Ohio, a regional freight carrier based in Pittsburgh, has received $1 million in seed financing to develop SafetyBox, a program that analyzes data to help trucking companies and fleet operators identify at-risk drivers.
The lead investor for the initial funding round is Birchmere Ventures, a firm with offices in Pittsburgh and San Francisco, with additional funds provided by McCune Capital in New York and M25 Group in Chicago, company officials announced Sept. 29.
“The trucking industry is rapidly being transformed by technology ranging from autonomous vehicles to sophisticated predictive safety system analytics,” said Sean Sebastian, a partner with Birchmere who will join Idelic’s board of directors.
Idelic applies algorithms to predict which drivers are at risk for accidents and violations of safety regulations. The system was developed at Pitt Ohio where CEO Chuck Hammel said it has proven to be beneficial.
Hayden Cardiff, CEO of Idelic, said the company’s latest version of its machine-learning algorithm predicted 90% of large truck accidents based on customer data. “Now we’re rolling that same model into predicting violations, incidents, injuries and other risk metrics that cost fleets significant amounts of money each year,” he said.
Birchmere Ventures also is an investor in Peloton Technology. McCune Capital is headed by Jason Cahill and is focused on ventures in transportation, energy, agriculture and manufacturing. M25 Group, headed by Victor Gutwein and Mike Asem, has invested in more than 50 companies since it was founded in 2015.
