Renovo

About Renovo

Renovo Motors, founded in 2010 by Christopher Heiser and Jason Stinson, initially focused on high-performance electric vehicles before pivoting to become a key player in the autonomous vehicle software sector. The founders, both with a passion for cars and deep technical backgrounds in software, automation, and robotics, identified a critical need for a new software architecture to enable the next generation of automated mobility. Heiser’s journey includes experience at IDEO, building mobile social networks at LightSurf, and working on autonomous vehicles at Carnegie Mellon, a background that directly informed Renovo's direction.

The company's primary offering became an edge-centric data platform for the automotive industry, designed to manage the massive amounts of data generated by advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles. Renovo developed Aware OS, a hardware-agnostic operating system that allows automakers and fleet operators to integrate various applications for automated driving, mapping, and other mobility services, drawing comparisons to Google's Android for its open-platform approach. This platform served clients in the ADAS and autonomous vehicle market, providing a turnkey solution to accelerate development cycles, manage vehicle data, and ensure safety compliance. Its business model was based on providing this SaaS-enabled platform to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and fleet operators.

A significant milestone was the launch of "Insight," a data management and orchestration platform that uses AI-powered automation to help developers derive value from fleet data more efficiently. This product won a CES Innovation Award in 2020. The company gained early recognition in 2015 through a partnership with Stanford University, where they programmed an autonomous, electrified DeLorean. Over its life, Renovo raised $10 million in funding from investors including True Ventures and Verizon. The company's trajectory culminated in its acquisition by Woven Planet, a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation, in September 2021. This acquisition integrated Renovo's team and its Aware OS into Woven Planet's development of Arene, an open vehicle development platform, aiming to create programmable vehicles and accelerate the future of mobility.