Highline Beta and Aviva Canada announce Safe X Connected Cities Accelerator startups

January 7, 2020 (Toronto, Ontario) - Highline Beta and founding partner Aviva Canada today announced the selection of four startups to participate in the inaugural cohort of the Safe x Connected Cities Accelerator. Launched in July 2019, the accelerator is a challenge-based platform to help scale startups with a proven ability to tackle road safety, mobility and smart city challenges.

The startups selected are:

• LifeSaver Mobile: Fleet safety mobile software that measures and reduces distracted driving for commercial fleet operators.
• MicroTraffic: Uses artificial intelligence to review intersection camera footage for collisions and near miss collisions, helping traffic engineers become proactive with safety.
• PreAct Technology: Integrates directly with cars to determine whether a collision is imminent in the microseconds before it happens, meaning a sequence of safety features both inside and outside can be deployed to reduce the chance of serious injury.
• Tome – Specialty technology that detects cyclists and scooters entering an intersection and communicates key information to drivers via signs to reduce conflict or potential collisions between cyclists and vehicles.

“We’re very eager to start working with these startups, each of which is tackling road safety in a different way,” says Benjamin Yoskovitz, Founding Partner at Highline Beta. “By focusing on executing meaningful, measurable pilots quickly through a program like Safe x Connected Cities, we’re helping solve real problems that matter to everyone.”

Over the next six months, Highline Beta and Aviva Canada will work closely with the selected startups to provide mentorship, develop proof concepts and pilot their solutions. Results of these pilots will be shared later in 2020.

“Through Take Back Our Roads, our new social impact platform, we’re working with organizations to create and deliver tangible improvements to road safety across Canada,” says Catherine Brown, Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Social Responsibility at Aviva Canada. “From a very strong group of applicants, we narrowed down our final selection to startups with unique solutions to very serious safety issues, and we look forward to working closely with Highline Beta to bring the pilots to life.”

About Highline Beta

Highline Beta builds and funds new ventures alongside forward-thinking global enterprises like Aviva, AB InBev and RBC. Combining the industry experience of enterprises, agility of startups, and methodology of investors, Highline Beta is building a new model for corporate innovation and venture capital to unlock new markets and drive growth.About Aviva Canada

Aviva Canada is one of the leading property and casualty insurance groups in the country, providing home, automobile, leisure & lifestyle and business insurance to 2.8 million customers. A subsidiary of UK-based Aviva plc, Aviva Canada has more than 4,000 employees focused on creating a bright and sustainable future for our customers and our communities.

Aviva Canada invests in safer Canadian communities through Aviva Take Back Our Roads. Launched in 2019, we’re investing in data driven solutions and strategic collaborations to make safer roads a reality for all. Aviva Canada, bringing over 300 years of good thinking and insurance solutions to Canadians from coast-to-coast.

For more information, visit aviva.ca or Aviva Canada’s blog, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn pages.

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Media Contact:

Janis McCulloch
PR Specialist
Aviva Canada
Janis.mcculloch@aviva.com

M: 437-236-4335