Auto-IoT firm ULU bought iMoto to cover 1,000 car models end to end

Connected-car IoT: hardware, software and cloud services for automotive products, including the Cartracker GPS corporate fleet platform with more than 15,000 active subscriptions.

End-to-end IoT coverage — hardware, software and cloud under one roof — beats single products, and buying iMoto’s 1,000-model compatibility beats building it.

ULU was founded in 2014 to provide end-to-end IoT coverage for automotive products — connected hardware, software and cloud services — with offices in London, the Netherlands, Slovenia and China. iMoto BV built a connectivity stack offering over-the-air firmware and cybersecurity updates.

Following the acquisition, ULU planned to refresh its vehicular telematics platform by adding iMoto compatibility for over 1,000 OEM vehicle models. iMoto co-founder Hielke Ytsma said integrating the two would offer 'a full and end-to-end proposition, including cloud services and software applications'.

Vehicle IoT buyers want one vendor for hardware, software and cloud, not separate stacks per product.

Building OEM compatibility model by model is slow; iMoto already ran on 100,000 vehicles across 1,000+ models.

OTA firmware and cybersecurity updates were becoming table stakes that ULU's tracker-first stack lacked.

Both companies serve fleets and last-mile operators, so the customer bases overlap.

In fragmented IoT, compatibility is the moat: buying a stack that already speaks to a thousand vehicle models turns an acquisition into immediate portfolio width.

As of 2023-02-01 ULU was refreshing its telematics platform to absorb iMoto's compatibility across 1,000+ OEM vehicle models; the source records no further results.