Porsche Acquires Stake in Smartphone App Developer

Porsche AG’s Porsche Digital GmbH subsidiary has purchased a minority stake in Anagog Ltd, an Israeli start-up that provides location-based sensor technology for smartphone apps.

Porsche’s unspecified investment in Anagog follows an earlier contribution by Daimler AG, which co-led the tech company’s second round of financing with Mizmae Ventures in February. Tel Aviv-based Anagog was founded in 2010 and now has 30 employees.

Anagog says its JedAI SDK platform is embedded into millions of smartphones worldwide. Using existing smartphone sensors, Anagog’s software and artificial intelligence collects and analyzes information about a user’s “mobility status.”

In addition to pinpointing location, the system can determine whether a person is stationary, walking, driving, approaching a vehicle or parking a car. Developers can use this type of data to better understand and anticipate customer behavior, which Anagog says can yield highly customized and crowd-sourced apps.

The company has 16 patents related to the technology, which is used in about 100 apps worldwide. The processing software typically uses about 1% of a phone’s battery power per day, which Anagog describes as best-in-class.

Watch a video about the technology here.