Sequoia Capital-funded SatNav Technologies’ attempts to align with carmakers to provide GPS-based navigation systems did not exactly take off.
Sequoia Capital-funded SatNav Technologies’ attempts to align with carmakers to provide GPS-based navigation systems did not exactly
take off.
So the Hyderabad-based company is changing tack, and focusing more on personal tracking systems.
The company has entered into an agreement with the Israel-based Waze Inc for offering the applications that would make driving and navigation easy on Indian roads.
“We currently have maps of about 858 cities in India and by March-end we will have about 1,000 cities with us. Waze has certain applications that are hitherto not available to us. The arrangement is more towards increasing our focus towards personal tracking and live traffic information services to the users,” Amit Kishore Prasad, founder and CEO of SatNav, said.
Founded in 2004, the company has been trying hard to set its feet in the Indian navigation market. Started with a GPS navigation product called SatGuide, the company was focusing more on expanding the market presence.
“We had even tried to get into OEM arrangements with several automobile makers. But, the response has not been very encouraging. Now, we have reworked the strategy and personal tracking is proving to be the best model,” he said.
SatNav claims that it has about one lakh users across the country.
The SatGuide-Waze application is also being offered for smart phone users across the country to create a live driving map, providing users with the real-time road intelligence they need for better driving. “Map and traffic updates are automatically collected and generated as users drive with the application on their phones but drivers can actively report and update other users with what’s happening on the road including accident alerts, police patrols, weather hazards, sales, offers and more,” he explained.
The company is also readying an exclusive phone for children using the tracking technologies. The child phone would not have a screen or a key pad. Instead, it would be locked to four telephone numbers of parents or guardians. The child can be reached only through these numbers. In case of emergency, the child can SOS any of these numbers by pressing a single button.
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