Autonomous vehicle technology company Nauto has entered into strategic agreements with three major auto companies, including BMW i Ventures and Toyota Research Institute, as well as with Allianz Ventures, part of the financial service provider and insurance company Allianz Group. The companies have invested in Nauto and are working with the company on autonomous vehicle development using the Nauto cloud-based data learning platform. Nauto has developed deep learning capabilities that run both in the cloud and on retrofit devices that can be mounted in any vehicle. Nauto is already deployed into commercial passenger, logistics and delivery fleets and enables these fleets to manage vehicle and driver safety and operate more efficiently. The agreements enable Nauto to grow its artificial intelligence-powered deep learning network and accelerate deployment into shared vehicle fleets and eventually migrate from retrofit device into new production vehicles.

Under the agreements, Nauto and its auto and insurance industry partners will license data and technologies, including Nauto’s artificial intelligence-powered vehicle network. As more and more vehicles deploy Nauto, its connected car network will be populated with greater volumes of precise information on how drivers and vehicles behave and perform-understanding both how excellent drivers handle vehicles in real urban conditions as well as the combinations of errors, distraction, and challenging circumstances that lead to crashes. The resulting insights will improve fleet safety and operations near term to reduce liability and expenses.

The Nauto system-an in-vehicle camera and sensor hardware, a smart network and a continuous learning cloud—allows any vehicle, human or autonomously driven, to be retrofit with safety and networking technology. A Nauto-enabled vehicle becomes part of a network that is constantly learning how to reduce risks and make driving safer and more efficient. At Nauto’s core is a perpetually learning artificial intelligence system which uses computer vision, GPS, vehicle sensors and data from its smart cloud to give an accurate picture and provide insights into driver behavior.

Nauto’s backers include Playground Global, Draper Nexus and Index Ventures. Nauto’s team of data science and machine learning Ph.D’s, engineers, and industry veterans in insurance and livery fleet operations are located in Playground Global Studio, where they are developing Nauto’s products and deploying them to professional fleet and insurance industry customers.

Nauto-equipped vehicles began gathering and learning street and driving patterns in more than 24 cities around the world, from Bangalore and Vienna to Mexico City and Boston, and are now in commercial deployments in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City.

The company received a $12 million Series A round of funding in April.