A company that aims to improve the in-car experience for drivers and passengers is on the verge of bringing its technology to the public.
ClearMotion announced this morning that it has secured a significant production order from an EV automaker and expects its active suspension technology to be available to consumers next year. The company also announced new funding to bring it to the start of production.
ClearMotion’s software-controlled actuators replace traditional shock absorbers in cars. The technology can dampen unwanted motion from bumps and turns or add motion to coincide with in-car entertainment, such as video games or movies.
BostInno reporter Hannah Green took a ride in a car outfitted with ClearMotion’s technology. Get a sneak peek at how these software-controlled actuators work.
The company has its headquarters in Billerica and its roots at MIT, where co-founders Zack Anderson, CTO, and Shakeel Avadhany met.
Anderson said the company’s new funding — a $32 million investment from NewView Capital, Acadia Woods, BAI Capital and others — came as a result of the company’s last round. ClearMotion announced a $39 million round last September.
“We had a lot of inbound interest. So, I’d say it was sort of opportunistic for us,” Anderson said. ClearMotion has raised more than $300 million to date.
The CTO said this new funding brings them to the “key milestone of getting product out there on the road.”
Anderson said the process of securing an order from an automaker is long and rigorous. Automakers require extensive testing for new parts because a problem with a single component of a car can impact the whole vehicle, the CTO explained. Anderson said ClearMotion has been working with its EV automaker customer for three years to get to this point.
“When a company is bringing a new product, new technology to market, there’s really a very high bar of proof to show the system works, it lasts,” Anderson said.
Now that they’ve passed these tests, ClearMotion is moving onto industrialization. The company signed a lease for its production facility in China and is commissioning the production line that will be installed inside, Anderson said. They’ve also lined up their suppliers that make the technology’s subcomponents and are doing pre-production builds with those parts. By the end of 2023, Anderson said the production facility will be making finalized parts.
Anderson said ClearMotion will be hiring in the next year, including in Massachusetts where the company does a lot of industrialization design work and testing.
Getting over this hurdle of landing a production order should also mean it’s easier for ClearMotion to expand its customer base moving forward, Anderson said. He said there’s often a “copycat effect” among automakers when they see a new feature coming out from a “leading automaker.” The process of bringing this active suspension technology to other customers should also be quicker now that they’ve already gone through the testing process.
“Now it’s kind of copy and paste because it is a one-size-fits-all product,” Anderson said.
ClearMotion plans to disclose the EV automaker it's working with later this year.
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