Israeli Traffic management Startup Waycare Bought for $61 million by Rekor Systems

Waycare Team (Company Photo: Yoav Picherski)

Waycare is an Israeli traffic management startup. Waycare has been acquired by roadway intelligence services company Rekor Systems for $61 million.

Just yesterday the world was shocked by a new report about the devastating effects that climate change has had on the world. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released Monday was based on studies conducted by hundreds of scientists and detailed the crisis that the world is now facing. It also proved that the rise in world temperatures has been caused by the activities of people which increased the CO2 levels in our atmosphere to a high not seen in two million years.
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The major culprit here is the automobile and its internal combustion engine. This is why the world is switching over to electric vehicles.

But this will take time. For now, cars need to spend as little time as possible on the roads. This is why traffic management is so important.

Most gas is wasted during local driving and cars stuck in traffic jams. This is because the engine continues to burn gas even while a vehicle is stopped. This is also the reason why a car gets better gas mileage on the highway than it does locally.

So, by possibly ending highway traffic jams, and providing drivers with the information needed to avoid all those starts and stops in local driving, companies like Waycare and Rekor Systems can aid in cleaning the air of carbon emissions.

Rekor states that its technology is propelling the evolution from traditional license plate recognition systems and traffic monitoring to AI-enabled smart roadways capable of serving multiple missions from a single source. Rekor was founded in 1996 and is led by CEO Robert A Berman and CFO Eyal Hen.
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Founded in 2016, Waycare boasts that they are shaping the future of city mobility by optimizing city traffic management. They do this by harnessing in-vehicle information for predictive insights.

“Ultimately, Waycare enables cities to fully control their roads and directly communicate with all vehicles.”

In the coming years, the average vehicle is expected to generate over 4 terabytes of data per day; 10X more than the daily data generated from an entire traffic management center, explains Waycare. At the same time, urban populations are exploding, leading to unprecedented levels of road congestion in cities. Waycare’s platform harnesses in-vehicle and internal city data to optimize traffic systems and establish a two-way communication channel between the city and the vehicle.

Waycare’s proprietary deep learning technologies provides the city predictive analytics and real-time decision making tools, enabling proactive traffic and incident mitigation and dynamic real-time traffic flow optimization options.
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It is with immense pleasure that we announce that Waycare was acquired by @rekorsystems, a global AI technology company. Together we will further a joint mission of building safer, smarter, more efficient cities. We can’t wait for you to see what’s next. https://t.co/BChiqIteQf

— Waycare (@WaycareTech) August 9, 2021

“We are very excited about the opportunity to become a part of Rekor Systems,” added Noam Maital, CEO and co-founder of Waycare. “Both companies were on an incredible journey building the infrastructure for smart cities which will benefit generations to come. By joining Rekor, we now have access to real-time roadway optical sensors, innovative software and enhanced data. Rekor is uniquely positioned to become a leading force in data aggregation and analysis for roadway intelligence. As a team we are looking forward to deploying our technologies and data to improve the quality of life for citizens and governments throughout the globe.”