Nationwide invests in Israeli tech company
Nationwide is buying a stake in an Israeli company that is working on technology that makes sure autonomous vehicles don’t crash into each other.
The Columbus insurance and financial services company has invested in Foretellix, a company that tests, verifies and validates automated driving systems and ensuring that they are safe.
The investment is from Nationwide’s $350 million venture capital fund.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“Consumers and business fleet drivers must be confident that every time they get in or see an automated vehicle, regardless of the level of autonomy or safety assist features, they are going to arrive safely at their destination and be protected,” Pete Frey, associate vice president of Commercial Lines Emerging Capabilities at Nationwide, said in a statement.
Foretellix was founded in 2018 by a team with a mission to make automated driving systems safe and efficient. The company uses a quantifiable approach to create and test all possible scenarios these systems may encounter.
The process reduces development cost and time to deployment.
Insurers and regulators are looking for ways to assess the degree of safety of such systems being developed by different suppliers. Foretellix takes a measurable safety approach that can provide objective assessments of such systems.
The investment is one of three that Nationwide announced this week from its venture capital fund.
Nationwide has made a third investment in Insurify, a virtual insurance agent and comparison platform. In June, Nationwide said Insurify developed Nationwide’s Digital Brokerage Solution that allows customers to compare car insurance quotes, coverage and policies from Nationwide and other insurance companies at the same place.
Nationwide also made a second investment in Upstream Security, a company that protects connected vehicles from cyberthreats. mawilliams@dispatch.com @Bizmarkwilliams