Karma Automotive Buys Airbiquity Assets & IP

Karma Automotive, a Southern California ultra-luxury vehicle manufacturer, has acquired the technology assets and IP of Seattle, Wash., -based Airbiquity. Karma has also hired key technical employees and assumed the software company’s significant OEM contracts.

The acquisition provides Karma with Airbiquity’s software product portfolio that has evolved over more than two decades to deliver connected vehicle solutions spanning over-the-air (OTA) updates, software development tools, data management and analytics.

“We are wrapping Airbiquity’s software into Karma Cloud Services and embedded vehicle technology to create a new platform that is greater than the sum of its parts,” says Karma President Marques McCammon. “Their commercial software meets the needs of a diverse base of transportation industry customers.”

“Airbiquity has mitigated system challenges we wouldn’t necessarily target when designing solely for our own vehicles. Their team and their software have been deployed in more than 60 countries in passenger cars and motorcycles and have serviced the largest OEMs in those sectors. Their design maturity will help codify our strategies for software-defined and continuously connected vehicles.”

The Karma-Airbiquity transaction was completed today. Employees who transition with the deal will immediately start merging the solutions from the two companies.

Karma recently introduced its re-branded vehicle lineup that ranges from a hybrid (the Revero) to a super coupe EV (Kaveya) featuring an all-wheel drive version that goes 0-60 in under three seconds.

“We are a technology company that manufactures ultra-luxury vehicles,” says McCammon. “By adding Airbiquity assets to our Karma Connected Cloud Services, which is already a core strength, our entire fleet will be fully connected and fully OTA capable.

“Other manufacturers are playing catch-up. We are simply producing better technology for our customers.”

Terms of the agreement are subject to closing conditions and financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.