Distracted driving is a leading cause of car accidents and rising auto insurance premiums, which are expected to rise by 2025.

This is a costly navigation challenge for commercial fleets. But for California-based startup Netradyne, it's a tailwind.

Netradyne provides fleet owners, including well-known brands like Amazon, with AI-enabled dash cams that collect vehicle data and video to improve driver safety, reducing crashes by approximately 50%. These devices can be equipped with inward- and outward-facing cameras and also use edge computing to send real-time notifications to drivers when they are distracted or driving dangerously, while also rewarding drivers for good behavior.

TechCrunch last reported on Netradyne's $150 million Series C round in 2021, and the company has since expanded beyond North America and India into Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. In order to further expand into Ireland and Japan in the coming months, Netradyne has just raised US$90 million in Series D financing, with a pre-money valuation of US$1.25 billion, led by Point72 Private Investments, with participation from Qualcomm Ventures and Pavilion Capital.

With huge expansion comes huge data. Over the years, Netradyne has accumulated more than 18 billion miles of data, which the company says has helped improve the product to 99% alert accuracy and a 25 million improvement in compliance scores.

The new funds will also be used to improve products and strengthen market investments.

Fleets have access to Netradyne’s Brand Safety Manager Assistant, an AI-powered co-pilot that provides a natural language interface to the company portal and uses generative AI to conduct conversations about data and insights.

Netradyne CEO and co-founder Avneesh Agrawal told TechCrunch that the company will invest more in generative AI, add more use cases for its co-pilot, and adopt a more "agent-based approach."

Agrawal also pointed out that Netradyne will use its large amounts of data to develop basic driving models, focusing on extreme driving scenarios to enhance autonomous driving technology.

"We have a wealth of visual data that allows us to analyze every aspect of the road and driving behavior and read different road signs. No one in the autonomous industry has this kind of data," Agrawal said. “Our goal now is to use generative AI to train driving models to identify these edge cases.”

He added that Netradyne has no intention of developing its own AV technology, but rather partnering with other companies and providing the startup's data and insights.

Netradyne's customers span fleets in online retail, food and beverage, oil and gas, utilities, construction and more. The startup offers two main products. The first is a quad-view dash cam that collects footage from the road-facing, driver-facing and two side-window cameras into one easy-to-install device. This captures driver behavior, reducing blind spots and providing evidence in the event of an accident. The second is a dual-view camera that faces both the road and the driver.

Fleet owners who need even more visibility can use the Hub-X add-on, which is a dash cam extension that allows up to four additional cameras to be placed wherever needed, such as facing the back of the bus.

The startup also offers a driver monitoring solution that can be added to a quad camera to detect drowsy driving behavior using specialized sensors with night detection capabilities and the ability to see through most sunglasses.

In response to concerns about driver privacy, Agrawal said Netradyne is GDPR compliant and never provides drivers' personally identifiable information to external parties.

“Investing in Netradyne is about believing in safer roads and supporting professional drivers,” said Sri Chandrasekar, Managing Partner at Point72 Private Investments. “Since our initial investment in 2018, we have witnessed Netradyne’s incredible growth and believe their technology can do more than just enhance fleet management. It also improves the driver’s ability and cultivates a safe driving culture.”

Netradyne has grown 65% in the past 12 months and expects to post a net profit next year, Agrawal said.