NextWala

Intersection of green and geocar

On my way to Telematics Detroit today, I drove in a San Francisco Greencab. This cab company has been around for a year and have 4-5 Prius cabs running. They are attracting a more loyal, younger clientelle- the driver told me that many of their clients already have a Prius and expressly ask for Greencabs. Greencab is already more carbon efficient than other gas-guzzling cab companies but is also looking into buying carbon credits in order to become carbon neutral- when I asked the driver whether the company had done the math on buying carbon credits relative to the company's cash flow, he said it wasn't that bad.

With a growing class of eco-conscious consumers, there are going to be a slew of features and products released in the digital car market that appeal to this consumer base. Some features would be green routing, integration with OBD2 interfaces for better carbon emission monitoring, integration with community etc. Can there be a breakout new startup in this area?

Speaking at Where 2.0 - "What's Hot and What's Not on the Geoweb"

I'll be at Where 2.0 this week, speaking at 1:45pm on Wednesday about "What's Hot and What's Not on the Geoweb" from a VC perspective - I will also cover GeoCar, GeoVoice and GeoMobile. 

As an investor, I think Where 2.0 has emerged as an interesting forum because it brings together talented geoweb developers and mind bending enabling technology companies.  What attracts me to the Geoweb is not only the huge momentum toward geo-enabling almost every web service but also the potential disruption that this could cause to a number of existing industries, such as telecom (directory assistance), publishing (local guides, maps, etc.), radio (advertising, content), travel, retail, automotive etc in the US and other geographies.

We are investors in two companies in this space Inrix and Where.com. as well as a number of other companies in the mobile and media spaces that could be of great value to developers for distribution, content and enabling technology. 

Join me for my talk and let me know what you think.

Update: I'm adding here the slides from my presentation today.  I will give more detailed voiceover during my talk.

| View | Upload your own

Venrock reception at Where 2.0 - thank you all!

Thanks to all of you who came to our Venrock Geoweb / Digital Car reception last evening. It was great to see so many people from the eco-system represented. We had folks from established companies such as GM, Daimler, Honda, BMW,  Nokia, Navteq, TeleAtlas, AND, Nuance, Microsoft/TellMe, Trimble, Navigon, Sprint etc. as well as private companies such as Placecast, Admob, CloudMade, Zvents, Dash, Autonet etc.  Special thanks to our portfolio companies Inrix, uLocate / Where.com and Intercasting as well as all my colleagues from Venrock for coming to the event!

The nicest thing to see was that the leading companies in this space (auto OEMs, mobile device OEMs, map vendors, PND vendors etc.) are all open to partnering with developers and startups for distribution as well as licensing of services, content and enabling technologies.

| View | Upload your own