Automatic Labs

Automatic Labs, founded in 2011 by Thejo Kote and Jerry Jariyasunant, was a company focused on connecting vehicles to the internet. Kote, a serial entrepreneur with a background in software engineering and a Master's degree from UC Berkeley, was inspired to start the company during his graduate studies when he realized cars were one of the few expensive consumer technologies not yet connected to the internet. The company developed a hardware adapter that plugged into a vehicle's onboard diagnostic (OBD-II) port, which is standard in most cars manufactured since 1996.

This adapter, paired with a mobile application, transformed a regular car into a connected one. The product offered a suite of features for consumers, including vehicle health monitoring, diagnostic trouble code explanations, trip logging, real-time vehicle location tracking, and crash detection with emergency assistance. The business model involved the one-time sale of hardware devices, such as the Automatic Pro and Automatic Lite, which were sold through retailers like Best Buy and Amazon. The company also catered to enterprise clients, such as automotive dealers, by providing tools to manage vehicle inventory and customer relationships. Additionally, it worked with insurance carriers to enable usage-based insurance programs.

Automatic Labs participated in the Y Combinator accelerator program and raised approximately $32 million from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, USAA, and Comcast Ventures. In April 2017, the company was acquired by SiriusXM for over $100 million. Despite this, Automatic Labs announced it would be shutting down its operations on May 28, 2020. The company cited the adverse business impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to fewer people driving and purchasing vehicles, as the primary reason for the closure.

Keywords: connected car, OBD-II, telematics, vehicle diagnostics, fleet management, usage-based insurance, automotive technology, IoT, SiriusXM, Y Combinator