Pune-based Intangles Lab, which has disrupted the market with its Digital Twin technology that powers services such as vehicle health monitoring, operations automaton and driver behaviour monitoring in the mobility segment, and provides predictions on vehicle health, has raised $10 million as Series A funding this month.
It will use the money to serve a new customer pipeline, expanding its global presence and hiring. The company, which has been working on conventional fuels all along, will also create solutions to accelerate into the emerging electric vehicles (EV) sector.
“EV will be predominant in the passenger cars, last mile travel and two-wheeler segments. In the long haul, we believe hydrogen and alternative fuels will soon catch up in heavy-duty commercial vehicles or commercial operations. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) and compressed natural gas (CNG) are also fuels that will have a significant presence, and we have solutions. We have invested a good amount of R&D and developed solutions for the alternative fuels to build the overall predictive analytics and performance monitoring stack,” says Anup Patil, CEO & co-founder.
The co-founders of Pune-based Intangles Lab (Express Photo)
The government has set an ambitious goal for e-mobility in India in all sectors. Among the highlights of the Union Budget 2023-24 was that subsidies on EV batteries had been extended for another year. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman talked about promoting biogas and hydrogen production and tax exemption on capital goods import associated with electric vehicle batteries. Last year, the NITI Aayog calculated that India could have eight crore EVs on the road by 2030, with 70 per cent of sales being in commercial cars, 40 per cent in buses and 80 per cent in two and three-wheelers.
Patil says that Intangles, which has been growing almost three times year on year despite the shocks of Covid, is aligning with the industry’s move towards greener and cleaner fuels. “But, the need of the hour is also to have a solution that will cater to these alternative areas and keep improving the overall performance metrics that exist,” he says.
Intangles has also filed a patent in the US and India for its fuel management technology. This is essential for commercial fleet operators who want to know how much fuel has been filled in a vehicle, consumed and if there is pilferage. “If there is pilferage, we can now monitor the quantity of fuel that has been taken out as well as the day, time and location,” says Patil. To collect this data, the company does not put any external sensors. It uses data from the OEM-deployed sensors already present in the vehicle.
“Normally, the sensors present in the vehicle can monitor fuel change in the range of 15-17 litres. Our machine learning algorithm, which we have applied for the patent, brings down the amount to half a litre to a litre. So, if there is even a minor level change, our algorithm can capture that with more than 98.5 plus per cent accuracy,” says Patil.
Intangles was set up to create solutions after the founders realised that, across the globe, one of the biggest problems in the commercial vehicle industry was performance and optimisation. “We wanted to ensure that the assets are always up and running because every time a vehicle stops working, the revenue stream stops,” says Patil. With its solutions, the company has become a significant part of India’s “Make in India, Make for World” motto.