Who We Are

CMT is committed to providing opportunities and career growth to the underrepresented. We're focused on creating an inclusive work environment that encourages a diversity of backgrounds and thought to produce the best products and services within our industry.

CMT’s story begins at MIT

In 2004, Hari Balakrishnan and Sam Madden started the CarTel project at MIT, developing a mobile sensing system to collect and draw inferences from sensor data on mobile devices. The following years, they partnered with Boston taxi companies to accurately measure traffic surface conditions and traffic using award-winning new methods for mobile telematics. This research won multiple “best paper” and “test of time” awards from the top research conferences in Computer Science. In 2010, building on their academic success, they started Cambridge Mobile Telematics with Bill Powers.

Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT) is the world’s largest telematics service provider. Its mission is to make the world’s roads and drivers safer. The company’s AI-driven platform, DriveWell™, gathers sensor data from millions of IoT devices — including smartphones, proprietary Tags, connected vehicles, dashcams, and third-party devices — and fuses them together with contextual data to create a unified view of vehicle and driver behavior. Companies from the personal and commercial auto insurance, automotive, rideshare, personal safety, wireless, auto retail, and financial services industries use insights from CMT’s platform to power their risk assessment, safety, claims, and driver improvement programs. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA, with offices in Budapest, Chennai, Seattle, and Tokyo, CMT serves millions of people through 80 programs in 18 countries, including 21 of the top 25 US auto insurers.

Our Leadership

Hari Balakrishnan

Founder & Chief Technology Officer

Hari led the MIT CarTel project with Sam Madden, developing the award-winning technology that led to CMT. He is also the Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence at MIT. Before CMT, he co-founded StreamBase (TIBCO) and was a founding advisor to Meraki (Cisco). For his impactful contributions to networks, mobile systems, and telematics, he was inducted to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and received the Infosys Prize and the IEEE Koji Kobayashi Award.

Bill Powers

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Bill has played a vital role in building and managing a number of successful organizations at companies like Swoop and Traffic.com. He is recognized as a leader in emerging media and technology. Bill established the Luke Vincent Powers Foundation in memory of his son, Luke. He serves as the Foundation’s President, which supports disadvantaged children.

Sam Madden

Founder & Chief Scientist

In addition to co-leading the CarTel project with Hari Balakrishnan, Sam is the College of Computing Distinguished Professor at MIT and the Director of BigData@CSAIL. He is known for contributions to the field of database systems, including highly-cited papers on managing sensor data, column-oriented databases, and databases-as-a-service. He was a co-founder of Vertica (acquired by HP).

Ted Gramer

Chief Operating Officer

Ted has more than 20 years of experience in the insurance and finance industries, including more than a decade with Liberty Mutual Insurance in a variety of executive leadership positions, including Chief Claims Officer and Executive Vice President of Liberty International. Gramer holds a Bachelor of Science in Management from Bentley University, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, and is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).

Our History

2010

Spun off from MIT CarTel project

MIT professors Hari Balakrishnan and Sam Madden paired their research with business and partnered with Bill Powers to start Cambridge Mobile Telematics.

2012

Launched first mobile, usage-based insurance product

CMT deployed the first service to efficiently gather and process sensory data from phones for auto insurance.

2013

Started tracking phone distraction

Began using phone sensors to measure phone distraction.

2014

Contest-based gamification

Added gamification features to the DriveWell platform to induce better driving.

Invented the DriveWell Tag

Launched the first fully wireless “Internet of Things” (IoT) device to measure driving behavior.

2015

Live impact alerts

Deployed the first and only mobile-centric impact detection and alerting system.

2017

Fleet safety

The DriveWell fleet program provides critical insights on driver behavior and vehicle location to commercial insurers and fleet managers.

2018

Crash reconstruction

Important crash information visualized for the insurer’s review, simplifying the claims process for all.

2022

Actuarial scoring

Our Premium Score gets regulatory approval in 49 states and counting.

Through the eyes of our employees

I started at CMT as an intern, and working here has been nothing if not incredible. I love the people and the culture. Being able to experience the direct impact of my solution on the business has given me a great sense of satisfaction and this is exactly why I chose to come back to CMT as a full time Program Manager!

– Sana Irfan, Program Manager

From two small rooms in CIC to three floors, I feel lucky to be a part of CMT's growth. It is a very unique company as all full-time employees and interns have the ability to affect the driving behavior of users around the world.

– Paresh Malalur, Head of AI and Vision

I have worked at companies with great people before, and have worked in fast-paced, dynamic, fun environments before as well. CMT has those things, plus great products with a social mission, visionary and supportive leadership, and the most collaborative environment I have ever worked in. Truly a special place to work.

– Fran Coughlin, Senior Technical Writer

Ready to change the world?

Join our team