High-tech Samsara sets up in Midtown

Company’s products used to track deliveries, coach drivers.

Samsara — a high-tech fleet management company that uses cameras, sensors and artificial intelligence to track and direct delivery of products and to coach drivers in real time — has opened its East Coast hub in Midtown.

Sanjit Biswas, one of the co-founders, said the office is opening with about 25 workers from California. In the next six to 10 months, the company will hire 100 people, and he expects it to grow to more than 400 employees in three years.

The company estimates, in that time period, it will have invested $100 million in the city via office and personnel costs.

The workforce will be roughly one-third engineers, one-third customer service and one-third sales.

The San Francisco-based company has pulled in $240 million in venture capital backing.

Already a logistics hub, Atlanta has attracted in recent years a number of high-tech ventures focused on connected vehicles. Mercedes-Benz just opened Lab1886, joining Panasonic Automotive Systems Co. of America, Verizon Connect and others that are developing applications in vehicle performance, information and entertainment systems.

Biswas is familiar with Atlanta, having lived intown for a few months in 2015 while his wife was training at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said he likes the energy and vibe of Midtown. The rented company office is at 1170 Peachtree St. at the corner of 14th Street. Atlanta is a good fit, he said. “First, we wanted to be closer to our customers,” Biswas said.

There were some time difficulties being on the West Coast when customers here were getting started three hours earlier.

“We looked from Boston to Miami,” for the right location, he said, adding Atlanta had the

right mix of talent, culture and opportunity for growth. There are startups here and some large companies, but fewer mid-sized high-growth companies such as Samsara. Georgia Tech with its pool of resources and talent was also a draw, he said.

Samsara’s hardware and software puts delivery on a real-time basis. It can help customers know exact locations of vehicles, estimate delivery times, monitor con- ditions of the contents and help drivers with routing. The company is also developing and deploying cameras and sensors that give immediate feedback to drivers about how they are driving, making them safer, Biswas said.

Biswas said Samsara did not ask for or receive tax incentives to locate here, unlike many companies.

“For us, it was more important that we chose the right city than get a few million dollars back,” he said.