Automotive software provider Sonatus announced they have completed a Series B funding (US$75 million) that was led by Foxconn. Sonatus, including the previous Series A funding, has funded more than US$110 million from venture capital companies, strategic partners, and clients. Foxconn commented that it has begun discussing with Sonatus regarding business collaborations on components and solutions for automotive software, as well as cloud services.
Sonatus was established at Sunnyvale of California in 2018, and focuses on providing automotive software solutions for OEMs and Tier 1 buyers, including foundation components under the EEA architecture such as data collection, new program operation and addition, networking mechanism, and cloud platform. By adopting Sonatus’ key building modules, auto manufacturers and the industry ecosystem are able to shorten the time in inventing innovation technology and product launching, while cost can be lowered and reliability can be elevated at the same time.
As reported, multiple production vehicles of Hyundai, KIA, and Genesis have adopted Sonatus’ software, including sedans and SUVs of Genesis. The platform is also adopted by Ioniq 6. Vehicles adopted with Sonatus’ software platform is expected to arrive at several million units by 2023. Sonatus, at the same time, is actively working with OEMs such as Stellantis and SAIC.
Foxconn pointed out that the partnership helps with its deployment in automotive software, while the substantial results from the partnership between Sonatus and Hyundai can benefit the launching time of automotive solutions, as well as contribute to the group’s development in other EV projects.
Furthermore, Foxconn is able to obtain a higher technical barrier by working with Sonatus, such as the faster and effective update mechanism for software components, as well as the auto-cloud communication protocol, or accomplish vehicle twins through edge ECU or seamless concatenation among cloud data.
Ye Guang-zhao, Senior Assistant Manager of Foxconn Software R&D Center, pointed out that the company’s vision is to replicate its successful models on PC and smartphones in the past onto the EV industry by creating innovative and cross-platform EV solutions. Sonatus is able to achieve seamless assimilation between automotive software and hardware during the mass production phase, and the strategic partnership between the two parties will exert synergistic effort.
(Cover photo source: TechNews)