Car IQ, a payment platform for vehicles, has completed a $5m Series A financing round.
The round was led by US-based venture capital firm Quest Venture Partners.
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Quest was joined by Avanta Ventures, Citi Ventures, Alpana Ventures, Plug and Play, and AVG’s Spike Ventures in the fundraising.
Citi Ventures head Vanessa Colella said: “The next revolution in payments will be driven by machine banking technology that allows any IoT device, including vehicles, to connect directly to the bank and pay for its own services.
“Situated at the intersection of two rapidly evolving industries, automotive and financial services, Car IQ is uniquely positioned to enable the next generation of vehicle payments.”
Car IQ is currently in the process of developing an autonomous payment gateway for vehicles. In addition, Sterling Pratz founded Car IQ in 2016,
The gateway will be designed to allow vehicles pay for their services by connecting to a bank’s payment network directly.
For authentication, the technology will use the complex sensor data in a vehicle and offer a unique digital vehicle fingerprint.
The technology is said to phase out the requirement of credit cards in vehicle service.
Pratz stated: “When vehicles pay for their own services, they eliminate fraud risk, add transparency to the transaction and greatly streamline operations for fleet managers,” said,
“The addition of a well-rounded group of seasoned investors will allow us to execute our vision even more rapidly as we grow our team, scale our operations, and focus our efforts on powering full machine commerce.”
