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Dhruv Maheshwari Is Turning the Stop Sign Into a Feedback Loop
Before Obvio put AI cameras beside Maryland intersections, Maheshwari spent a decade testing one idea: technology matters most when it changes what people do in the real world.
Obvio
Obvio is a San Carlos, California startup building solar-powered, AI-equipped camera pylons that watch intersections for dangerous driving - running stop signs, speeding, illegal turns, crosswalk violations and distracted driving. The cameras process footage on-device, flag only genuine violations for human review, and hand verified cases to local police, who decide whether to issue citations. Obvio installs the hardware for municipalities at no upfront cost and earns revenue from a share of citation fees. Founded by former Motive engineers Ali Rehan and Dhruv Maheshwari, the company raised a $22 million Series A led by Bain Capital Ventures in June 2025 and reports that early Maryland deployments cut stop-sign running by roughly 50-70%.
GridMatrix
GridMatrix is an Austin-and-San-Francisco-linked startup that turns the traffic cameras, radar, and loop detectors cities already own into a live feed of congestion, safety, and emissions data. Founded in 2021 by former Apple and Amazon operations engineers, the company sells cloud software to departments of transportation, port authorities, and campuses that would rather squeeze insight out of existing hardware than buy new sensors. It has raised just under $10 million and now runs on bridges, tunnels, and marine terminals across the country.
Nicholas D'Andre
Nicholas D'Andre is the CEO and co-founder of GridMatrix, a San Francisco-founded software company that turns a city's existing traffic cameras and sensors into a real-time, AI-driven nervous system for roads, tunnels, ports and airports. A supply-chain operator turned infrastructure entrepreneur, he spent years buying sensors and RF components at Apple and forecasting demand at Amazon and Google before deciding the bigger problem was the analog infrastructure those devices lived inside. GridMatrix was selected from more than 150 global startups by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and now runs on landmarks like the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the George Washington Bridge, spotting near-misses, congestion and emissions before they become headlines.