Sibros Technologies Inc. has raised a $70 million funding round led by New York-based Energy Impact Partners and including participation from Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, and a follow-up investment by Folsom-based Moneta Ventures LLC.
San Jose-based Sibros developed firmware and software that allows carmakers to update in-vehicle software over the air rather than requiring a trip to a dealership, either for updates or for recalls.
“Today is an incredible milestone for Sibros as we welcome some of the most influential names invested in the future of clean energy, cloud and auto-tech who join our mission of powering the connected vehicle ecosystem with a vertically integrated solution,” said Sibros CEO and co-founder Hemant Sikaria, in a news release. “The past two years have been a period of extreme growth at Sibros as we track towards being deployed on many millions of vehicles.”
Sibros has 74 employees and is based in San Jose. The company has an office in Folsom with 15 people, including the CEO.
Sibros last raised $12 million in July 2020 in a round led by Menlo Park-based Nexus Venture Partners LLC with participation from Moneta Ventures and Twin Ventures of San Francisco.
Alphabet’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) investment isn’t from its corporate venture arm. Rather, it is from Google itself, said Sibros spokesman Albert Lilly.
Moneta was the first investor into Sibros, and it doubled down on its investment with this second round, said Lokesh Sikaria, Moneta Ventures founder and managing partner. He said the second round was aiming for $50 million, but was oversubscribed.
Sibros CEO Hemant Sikaria and Moneta Managing Partner Lokesh Sikaria are brothers.
Lokesh Sikaria said he felt there was the potential for a conflict of interest in his decision-making on Sibros, so he didn’t participate in the funding decision in 2020, but the rest of Moneta’s investment committee was unanimous in electing to invest in Sibros.
Sibros said the funding will be used to meet strong global demand and deliver large customer deployments of Sibros’ deep connected vehicle software and data management platform.
Other investors into the second round included Fontinalis Partners of Boston, Iron Pillar of Mumbai and Qualcomm Ventures, the venture arm of wireless technology company Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM) based in San Diego.
Sibros allows automakers to install wireless software updates, data collection and remote diagnostics in a way that is compliant with industry standards for safety and security.
Users include many of the world’s makers of cars, trucks, buses, motorcycles, scooters, e-bikes and tractors, Sibros said.
