GreenRoad raises $10M from Al Gore's Generation Investment Management

GreenRoad, which is developing technologies to encourage safe and fuel-efficient driving behavior, announced today that it has raised $10 million in financing from Generation Investment Management, the investment firm co-founded in 2004 by Al Gore.

GreenRoad will use the proceeds of this financing to accelerate the deployment of its GreenRoad 360 service among existing and new customers.

GreenRoad 360, the Company's proprietary technology-based service, provides drivers and fleet managers with real-time, comprehensive and preventative feedback, analysis, reporting and coaching on drivers’ abilities, maneuvers and patterns.

According to GreenRoad, driving behavior is the largest single contributor to driving safety and fuel efficiency and costs the US and Europe over $500 billion dollars per year. A typical GreenRoad customer sees up to a 50% reduction in crash costs and up to a 10% reduction in fuel consumption within the first year. As a result, GreenRoad delivers an innovative solution that saves lives, saves fleets money in top vehicle expense categories (fuel, crash, wear & tear, insurance) and provides a cost-effective way to reduce emissions.

“We are very excited to welcome Generation, whose investment philosophy and leadership in sustainability is a perfect fit with GreenRoad,” said Dan Steere, CEO of GreenRoad. “At GreenRoad, our job is to make our roads safer and greener and we look forward to working with Generation in leading the way to cleaner, safer and more cost-efficient transportation.”

GreenRoad is headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, with sales offices throughout the U.S. and UK and an R&D Center in Or Yehuda, Israel, which has 90 employees. The company was founded in 2003 by Chief of Safety Hod Fleishman and CTO Ofer Raz.

GreenRoad has raised $48 million to date, including the present financing round, from Generation Investment Management and existing investors DAG Ventures, Benchmark Capital, Virgin Green Fund, Amadeus Capital and Balderton Capital.

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Al Gore addresses Tel Aviv U. renewable energy conference

During his keynote address at Tel Aviv University's Renewable Energy Conference, former U.S. vice president Al Gore called on Israel to take the lead in the development of renewable energy.

"The people of Israel stand in my moral imagination as guardians of the proposition that we as human beings are answerable to moral duties, that there are ethical laws that should guide our decisions and choices. At this moment in history, when, for the first time, all the people of this earth have to make a clear, seemingly difficult but simple moral judgment about our future, the people of Israel can lead the way to renewable energy."

A video of the event, including speeches by Al Gore and Israeli President Shimon Peres -- who called oil the "biggest problem of our time" -- is available on Tel Aviv U.'s web site.

Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel's Minister of National Infrastructures, announced his intention to commit Israel to construct an additional solar power station in the Negev every year for the next 20 years, and to construct a 300MW wind power station by 2011. Ben-Eliezer also revealed that in the coming weeks he will introduce a government resolution designating all of the Negev Desert and southern Israel as a national preference zone for renewable energy.

I will be attending the conference on Wednesday. The program focuses on (1) Renewable Energy: R&D Challenges; (2) Sustainable Energy: Opportunities in the Business Sector; (3) Global Warming and Geopolitics: Instability or Peace?; and (4) Israel's Road to Energy Independence.