Automatic connects your car to the rest of your digital life.
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If you only have a few minutes to spare, here’s what investors, operators, and founders should know about Automatic (S11).
Automatic Labs gave older cars a connected-data layer through an OBD-II adapter and phone app. Founded in 2011 and admitted to YC's Summer batch, the company launched a $70 Bluetooth adapter that exposed trips, vehicle state, and driving patterns without requiring a new car.[1][2]
SiriusXM acquired Automatic in April 2017 for an SEC-recorded $107.736 million net of acquired cash and restricted cash.[3] Automatic shut every service in May 2020, citing COVID's impact.[4] COVID was the stated trigger, not a complete causal account. The structural exposure was service dependence: one-time hardware revenue supported recurring cellular, cloud, crash-response, account, integration, and support costs. When the backend ended, the adapters became waste.
This company was Automatic Labs, not Automattic or another similarly named business. It was founded in 2011 and joined YC's Summer batch. The current YC page identifies Jerry J. as a founder but does not establish the complete founder roster.[1]
Automatic's thesis was that drivers should not need to buy a new vehicle to gain connected-car capability. Since many cars exposed data through the standardized OBD-II port, a small adapter and smartphone could reveal trips, efficiency, safety patterns, and maintenance signals.[2]
The first Automatic Link paired a $70 Bluetooth dongle with iPhone and Android apps. It translated a diagnostic port designed for service work into a consumer product.[2]
No safe fetched founder quotation appears in the observed evidence. This report does not reconstruct one from marketing copy.
The original Automatic Link read vehicle state, trips, and driving patterns through the OBD-II port. The phone supplied interface, connectivity, and location context.[2]
Automatic later added diagnostic alerts, crash assistance, fuel monitoring, parking location, live tracking, teen-driver coaching, and usage-based insurance workflows.[6] Automatic Pro used cellular connectivity and cost $129.95. Automatic Lite cost $79.95 and focused on trip logging and vehicle health. Neither carried an ongoing consumer service fee at acquisition.
Cellular connectivity made Pro more useful and more dependent. Crash notification and live tracking required the adapter, network, cloud, account, integrations, and response processes to remain active. The hardware did not contain the whole product.
Automatic also created partner workflows for insurers, dealers, and vehicle-service providers. This widened monetization beyond device sales while making the business dependent on data relationships and continuing cloud operation.
Automatic targeted owners of existing vehicles who wanted connected-car features. It also served insurers, dealers, and service partners seeking driver-authorized telemetry or customer workflows.
No audited shipments, active-vehicle count, retention, revenue, or market-size figures were found. National availability through Automatic's site, Best Buy, and Amazon shows distribution, while partnerships show enterprise interest.[6]
Automatic competed with automaker-connected services, other OBD-II adapters, insurer dongles, phone-only driving apps, and newer vehicles with built-in telemetry. Its advantage was a polished retrofit spanning many cars.
Read the complete post-mortem, the rebuild playbook, and the exact reasons Automatic is still worth studying now.