Tire health has an enormous impact on a truck's fuel efficiency and safety on the road.

And yet, with all of the arguably sexier solutions out there offering driver assist features and self-driving software, tires don't get the attention they deserve. At least, so says Ron Lee, the head of business development at BANF, a startup that builds hardware and software to monitor tire health.

South Korean BANF, for which the full form stands for Begin A New Feature, uses sensors to gather information on the pressure and temperature of the tires, and also to measure the treads wear, alignment, wheel, and even stability about the lug nuts. Then, machine learning will evaluate that information to allow not only insights into tire health but also cargo load measurements and even road surface conditions. Lee says the insights are accurate up to 90%, and that's beneficial for anyone, from fleet management companies to OEMs, to departments of transportation. Tires are the sole point of contact with the road, Lee told TechCrunch. We're not saying that we're replacing vision-based methodologies of capturing potholes or road conditions, but we're more of a complementary solution. We are more accurate at capturing road coefficient and also the depths of potholes, which is one of the key indexes that road management needs to know because they have limited budgets, so they have to know where to prioritize.

The four-year-old startup based in Korea and China will launch into Texas as autonomy for autonomous trucks starts catching on on highways.

Autonomous vehicles, he said, are designed to run continuously 24/7 for optimal profit, which equates to more tire stress," Lee said, noting electric vehicles are also heavier due to their batteries that wear out tires. "Tire data will be even more important in the future.".

Tire incumbents have lately welcomed smart tire tech and found customers in AV startups. May Mobility and Kodiak Robotics use Bridgestone's in-wheel sensors and predictive algorithms for monitoring tire health, and Gatik makes use of Goodyear's road-friction detection technology. Bridgestone invested in tire sensor and data management company Tyrata in 2022 and in virtual sensor and cloud computing to estimate tire grip by Tactile Mobility, which was backed by Goodyear, in 2021.

BANF, that competes in the TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 Startup Battlefield, gives a slightly different solution for companies in the industry.

This means its hardware product is focused around a "triaxis" sensor mounted within the inner liner of a tire that can measure and sense motion and forces applied across the X-axis, like acceleration or deceleration in a truck; capture movement side to side along the Y-axis, such as the truck's turning and swerving; and perceive up-and-down motion associated with the Z-axis as felt by the truck moving over bumps and road vibration. The sensor also contains pressure and temperature sensors, and can send raw data via Bluetooth to the next hardware in the BANF stack, which is the "smart profiler." The profiler is a transmitter, receiver, and charger.
It is attached to the truck's mud flap. It offers connectivity to the vehicle's battery so that it can provide wirelessly transmitted power with ongoing power supply to the sensor.

It also allows sensor data to be sent to any location the client may wish to receive it. It could be anywhere - telematic device, fleet management device or onboard a vehicle for instantaneous observation and analysis. Lee said the whole system will cost $50 a vehicle a month. According to him, BANF's tech can potentially help fleet owners save around $4,500 per truck yearly on fuel consumption and maintenance of tires. It is currently working with Volvo Group, Hyundai Motor Group, and DHL for various projects. Lee states that BANF's technology is already in 123 vehicles of which four are passenger cars and the rest were class 8 trucks that operated within the jurisdiction of Sweden, the United States, India, Korea, and China. The executive further added that BANF is currently working with major tire manufacturers in the U.S. for the commercialization of this startup's tech through a profit-sharing agreement by the end of 2026.

BANF raised a $5 million pre-Series A last year, and is close to closing a $12 million Series A round, according to Lee. BANF aims to begin trading on Korea's stock exchange at the end of 2027, and then try its hand at a U.S. Nasdaq IPO. But Lee said BANF is open to other exit opportunities.

We have many exit options. And not just to tire companies, Lee said. We could be very beneficial to the commercial vehicle manufacturers to win over market share. Fleet management companies, telematic device companies, and even insurance companies.