The founders of Raleigh’s Cubo Cruise, an AI-powered smart device designed to discourage distracted driving, want to revolutionize driving safety—and they don’t even have their driver’s permits yet.
Cubo CEO Dhruva Valluru, CFO Gideon Merakanapalli, CTO Shashank Mantrala and CMO Amogh Gotaparthy met at Carnage Middle School in Raleigh. Now in high school, these four friends have already found success with an idea they first dreamed up in the seventh grade.
The Cubo Cruise is a small, rectangular device that uses a quantum analysis two-part algorithm that has been reviewed by professors at Carnegie Mellon and MIT. It is meant to be placed on a driver’s dashboard, which helps set it apart as a third-party system that’s compatible with any vehicle, from the latest high-end cars to a 2000s hand-me-down.
Using AI face detection, the device notices when a driver is looking away from the road, prompting an audio alert. According to the team, Cubo does not store any personal data; the camera data is processed locally on the device, translated to numerical signals and then discarded after transmitting to the phone app.
In its early stages, Cubo was a simple Raspberry Pi project, outfitted with custom software, a camera, a mic and a speaker. As the Cubo team decided to produce their devices commercially, they designed a custom-printed circuit board to be manufactured and put into a 3D-printed hard shell.
A single device currently costs about $100 to produce. The team plans to partner with a local manufacturer that would lower costs significantly, and hopes to increase partnerships globally as the startup expands.
Cubo has received support from the NC Governors Highway Safety Program, which has led to many connections including with the Center for Entrepreneurial Development. Currently, the startup partners with insurance companies to offer incentives on car insurance based on your driving habits. Other partners include rental car companies, fleet operators and parents of teens beginning to drive.
Valluru said that his proudest moment at Cubo was when they had first implemented their project, testing their project in five cars.
“One of the parents called us up, and [was] like, ‘Oh my God, I didn’t realize my child was driving this recklessly. Thank you so much for letting us know.’ They were really reckless, using their phone all the time, going over the speed limit, like, everything, right?” Valluru said. “And what [that] made me realize was, we possibly could have just saved a life, because if she had kept driving at her current patterns, it could not only hurt her but the people around them, and that’s what Cubo is.”
The Cubo boys have made it big in the tech world, qualifying for globals in the Triangle Youth Entrepreneurial System competition, publishing their algorithm in several Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers articles and presenting that algorithm and their flagship product to leading academics around the country.
Earlier this year, they became the youngest ever presenters at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
“It’s the biggest tech show in the world,” Mantrala said. “It’s not a joke, to just get in and be able to have a booth there, people from all around the world were coming, and that we should be in our teens. To be the youngest is crazy. So it was kind of an unreachable dream.”
QUICK BITS
Startup: Cubo Cruise
Co-Founders: Dhruva Valluru, Shashank Mantrala, Amogh Gotaparthy, Gideon Merakanapalli
Founded: 2024
Team size: 4
Location: Raleigh
Website: cubocruise.com
Funding: Raising pre-seed
Looking to the future, the Cubo team is all in. They have plans to fully commit to producing Cubo devices at scale, and have a long-term goal of selling to major car companies like Toyota and Honda.
At the core of it all are the four young friends, who say that they hope to remain close friends and business partners even as they navigate a growing company, finishing high school, and going off to top colleges around the country.
“Before all this, we were best friends, and this has made us even closer,” Gotaparthy said. “So I don’t see anything like this breaking us up, and I think we really hope to take this further.”
