Who We Are
Our Story
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.

CMT has pioneered many solutions. It deployed the first mobile usage-based insurance (UBI) with smartphones in 2012, the first measurement of phone distraction using smartphone sensors in 2013, the first behavior-based insurance offering to augment traditional vehicle-centric UBI in 2014, a novel windshield-mounted hardware Tag to augment smartphone sensors in 2014, and real-time crash alerts with roadside assistance in 2015. A profitable and rapidly growing company, CMT is the world’s leading and largest mobile telematics provider supporting 50 enterprise programs in 25 countries, with over 6.5 million users of its services. CMT’s products include DriveWell, a telematics and analytics platform for measuring driving quality and incentivizing safe driving, and Claims Studio for real-time crash detection to help drivers in a crash and accurate crash reconstruction to the insurance claims process more efficient. Headquartered in Cambridge, MA near the MIT campus, CMT also has offices in Seattle, LA, Dallas, London, and Chennai.
We're always looking for talented people to join our team.
Our Leadership

Founder & Chief Technology Officer

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Founder & Chief Scientist
Our History

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.

Launched first mobile, usage-based insurance product
CMT deployed the first service to efficiently gather and process sensory data from phones for auto insurance.

Started tracking phone distraction
Began using phone sensors to measure phone distraction.

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.

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

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

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

Actuarial scoring
The DriveWell Premium Score gets regulatory approval in 29 states and counting.