In High Gear: Vinli Secures $13.5 Million in Series B Funding

DALLAS, Feb. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Vinli, connected car and data intelligence platform provider, announced today it has closed $13.5 Million in additional funding. The Series B funding round has participation from new and existing investors, including global electric utility provider, E.ON, The Westly Group, Hersh Family Investments, and Hal Brierley. Konrad Augustin, Investment Director at E.ON Scouting and Co-Investments, and Kenneth Hersh, will join Vinli's Board of Directors.

Driven to Scale and Succeed

The new funding enables the company to broaden its mobility services and integrations to customers worldwide. The company is now on the fast track to add electric vehicles to its growing list of platform capabilities and expand its innovative data intelligence platform, Era.

Era is a revolutionary machine learning platform that facilitates the streaming from any data source into a secure and intelligent location. The outcome of this technology is increased transparency of data, predictive visibility, and flexibility for real-time business and consumer insights. It's what smart companies want with their smart vehicle solutions.

"The investment validates our place in the industry. In the last five years, we have seen the industry unfold and evolve into an industry driven by digital services," said Mark Haidar, CEO of Vinli. "Companies today need viable data solutions ? not only to support the growing number of data sources, but to deliver on the multiple service offerings to their end customers. We're focused on making it easier for large fleets and automakers to access smarter data intelligence. It's in helping those partners scale and be successful is what we look forward to most at Vinli."

Plugged Into the Electrical Vehicle Market

The investment deepens the strategic partnership with E.ON, marking Vinli's first collaboration with an energy company. E.ON will leverage Vinli digital services and data intelligence platform, Era, to broaden electric mobility offerings and tailor solutions for electric fleets.

"With the information from the car itself, we are closing a gap in our data world for eMobilty. By combining customer vehicle and network data, we can identify trends at an early stage and will continually create new digital mobility offerings for our customers. Beyond the competitive advantage, we see Vinli as an attractive investment. The company is the global innovation leader in a technology of the future," says Frank Meyer, Senior Vice President Innovation and Customer Solutions at E.ON. 

A Track Record of Growth and Profitability

The funding round follows a strong fourth quarter of revenue growth, profitability, and milestones for the company, including the announcement of Era, and a global strategic partnership with ALD Automotive to make connected services available to its global fleet of 1.6 Million vehicles.

With the business in a growth stage, the company will expand across multiple areas. Vinli will be making key hires this quarter to fill leadership and engineering roles in the next few months.

About Vinli

Vinli is a data intelligence platform creating new mobility services for the next era of the automotive industry. The company has built the most advanced vehicle data computing platform, grown into the largest app ecosystem for the car, and secured global partnerships with significant players in the telecom and automotive industry. The company is backed by some of the largest automotive and tech investors including Samsung, Cox Automotive, Continental, The Westly Group, Hal Brierley, Hersh Family Investments, First Round Capital, and E.ON. Vinli is headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Find out more at vin.li.

About E.ON

E.ON is an international investor-owned energy company, focusing entirely on energy networks, customer solutions and renewables. As one of Europe's largest energy companies, E.ON plays a leading role in shaping a clean, digital, decentralized world of energy. To this end, the company develops and sells products and solutions for private, commercial and industrial customers. In the 2017 financial year, more than 40,000 employees from 90 nations generated sales of around $42 billion. Around 32 million customers purchase gas and electricity from E.ON. The company is headquartered in Essen, Germany. For more information, please visit www.eon.com. 

About The Westly Group

The Westly Group is one of the larger venture firms in North America focusing on rapidly growing companies in the smart energy, smart transportation and smart building sectors. The Westly Group was founded in 2008 and announced it had raised its third fund in summer of 2018 with 11 of the world's larger energy and auto companies as anchor investors. The company has had four portfolio companies go public on Nasdaq including Tesla Motors.

SOURCE Vinli