Fundraising Fox
Drive Spotter
Techstars '16Omaha, US · Founded 2015 · Delaware corporation · 2 known investors
Find your way into Drive Spotter
Sign up to find every way you can get introduced to Drive Spotter
- Your email: who you already know at Drive Spotter, and who your contacts know
- 2nd- and 3rd-degree connections: people you know who worked, studied or invested with the Drive Spotter team
- Your LinkedIn: the connections who can make the intro for you
We rank every route by how warm it is, so you raise on warm intros instead of cold emails.
Drive Spotter is an Omaha-based video analytics platform that analyzes dash cam and telemetry data to improve commercial fleet driver behavior.
Also known as DriveSpotter
Founders & leadership
Investors · 2
How we know: the Techstars portfolio · open dataset · Top 3000 Accelerator Startups (no YC) 2026-08 · Not right? Tell us
Also in the syndicate · 1
Reported raises · per SEC filings
Form D private placements$765.3K disclosed across 2 of 3 rounds · 2015–2017
▶$515.3KraisedAug 2017 · 3 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- ANDREW PRYSTAIExecutive Officer
- CHRISTOPHER J. AUGERIExecutive Officer, Director
- KURT EAVESDirector
- MARTIN ELLINGSWORTHDirector
- Offering amount
- $515.3K
- Amount sold
- $515.3K
- First sale
- Feb 2017
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2015
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
▶$250KraisedAug 2015 · 2 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- Chris AugeriExecutive Officer, Director
- Offering amount
- $750.5K
- Amount sold
- $250K
- First sale
- Jul 2015
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2015
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
Source: SEC EDGAR Form D. Amounts as filed; amended filings shown once at their latest values.
Company profile
researched Sep 2026Drive Spotter is a mobility and video analytics company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, with a fleet operations office in Des Moines, Iowa. Its platform allows commercial fleet managers to query dash cam footage and vehicle telemetry data in order to analyze fleet operations and driver behavior. The resulting insights are used to tune driver training programs and design incentive structures intended to improve driver performance, lower operating costs and reduce accidents.
Beyond fleet operators, the company makes aggregate data available to insurance and fleet service companies, which can use it to evaluate risk and inform the setting of commercial fleet premiums. By early 2017 the company described itself as a mobility company building a dynamic map of the roadways, with the resulting map data positioned for use by insurance companies, vehicle manufacturers and city planners for roadway safety and efficiency purposes. Management has described the broader positioning as a video analytics software platform for analyzing any object in motion.
Founding story
According to co-founder Chris Augeri, the idea originated in April 2014 during a drive on the Interstate between Denver and Omaha, when he and his then-girlfriend nearly fell asleep at the wheel returning from a conference in Colorado and began discussing how driver fatigue could be detected and prevented. A fatigued-driver truck crash in June 2014 that injured actor Tracy Morgan and killed James McNair reinforced the focus. In July 2014 the U.S. Department of Transportation opened a call for concepts to detect and alert fatigued drivers; the team partnered with Wichita State University and a driver-fatigue expert to prepare and submit a proposal. The company was launched in February 2015.
Business model
Drive Spotter provides a software platform to commercial fleet operators for analyzing dash cam and telemetry data, and additionally makes aggregate mobility and roadway map data available to insurers, fleet service companies, vehicle manufacturers and city planners.
Traction
The company reported scaling its product, growing its team, filing additional patent applications, expanding its developer team and accelerating its sales pipeline following the close of its seed round. Its board includes Marty Ellingsworth, former president of Verisk ISO, and Kurt Eaves, an insurance executive at Grinnell Mutual. Staffing was listed in the 1-10 employee range.
Latest developments
In January 2017 the company described itself as building a dynamic map of the roadways and outlined community programs, including a sponsored deployment with the Omaha non-profit No More Empty Pots, work with Des Moines-based Nourish Mobile Grocery, and participation in a Detroit-area sustainability forum connected to the Go! Detroit Challenge powered by Ford Motor Company.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
Drive Spotter was an alumnus of both the Global Insurance Accelerator and Techstars Mobility, and its seed round was described by the GIA's managing director as the largest investment in a GIA portfolio company to that date. Management noted that positioning solely around autonomous vehicles would place it in a crowded market, and instead framed the company as a general video analytics platform for objects in motion.
The company positions its platform as applicable to analyzing any object in motion rather than solely autonomous vehicle applications, and combines fleet-facing driver behavior analytics with aggregate data products for insurers, manufacturers and city planners.
Technology
The platform ingests dash cam video and vehicle telemetry and makes it queryable for analysis of driver behavior and fleet performance. The company assembled a computer vision and video analytics team, based in part in Austin, and has filed patent applications covering its intellectual property, including applications intersecting autonomous vehicle use cases. Later work focused on building a dynamic map of roadways from collected mobility data.
Go-to-market
The company built its pipeline and customer relationships through vertical accelerator programs and industry networks, graduating from the Global Insurance Accelerator in Des Moines (2015) and Techstars Mobility in Detroit (2016), and using those connections in the insurance and mobility industries to expand its sales pipeline. It was also selected to showcase at the North American International Auto Show.
Commercial fleet operators and fleet managers, plus insurance carriers, fleet service companies, vehicle manufacturers and city planners that consume the company's aggregate mobility data.
Geography
Headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, with a fleet operations office in Des Moines, Iowa, and a distributed team with active members in Omaha, Des Moines, Detroit, Austin and Silicon Valley.
History
The company launched in February 2015 and participated in the Global Insurance Accelerator in Des Moines in 2015, where it met Grinnell Mutual, the lead investor in its seed round, which closed on 31 January 2016 and was announced in March 2016. It subsequently opened a fleet operations office in Des Moines, filed additional patent applications and expanded its developer team. It was selected for the 2016 Techstars Mobility class in Detroit, which began in June 2016, and in December 2016 was named among 20 startups set to showcase at the North American International Auto Show. By January 2017 it described itself as a mobility company building a dynamic map of the roadways.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Timeline · 5
launches, deals, and filingsDrive Spotter was included in a list of 20 startups selected to showcase at the North American International Auto Show the following January.
Drive Spotter was named among twelve teams in the 2016 Techstars Mobility accelerator class, operating from a 10,000-square-foot office in downtown Detroit.
Drive Spotter announced a $750,000 seed financing round led by Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance, an investor in the Global Insurance Accelerator. The company stated the round closed on 31 January 2016 and described it as the largest investment in a Global Insurance Accelerator portfolio company to date.
$750K source ↗
Following the seed round, the company opened a fleet operations office in Des Moines and expanded its developer team.
The company participated in and graduated from the Global Insurance Accelerator in Des Moines, where it met its seed lead investor.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Legal entities · 1
corporate structure▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Drive Spotter – Funding, Valuation, Investors, Newsparsers.vc · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Drive Spotter do?
- Drive Spotter is an Omaha-based video analytics platform that analyzes dash cam and telemetry data to improve commercial fleet driver behavior.
- Who are Drive Spotter's investors?
- Drive Spotter's investors include Techstars.
- How much funding has Drive Spotter raised?
- Drive Spotter has disclosed $765.3K raised across 2 of its 3 known rounds.
- Where is Drive Spotter headquartered?
- Drive Spotter is headquartered in Omaha, US.