Samsara Accuses Rival Motive of Stealing Its Vehicle-Tracking Technology

Samsara Inc., a maker of vehicle tracking software, sued rival Motive, accusing the startup of systematically stealing its technology.

Motive Technologies Inc., formerly known as KeepTruckin, “based much of its product line and even its business strategy on routinely stealing Samsara’s technologies and fraudulently accessing Samsara’s platforms,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

In the patent infringement lawsuit, filed in federal court in Delaware, Samsara asks for unspecified financial damages and an order for Motive to stop using its technologies. The two companies sell internet-connected products and software to manage fleets of vehicles in a variety of industries including transportation, delivery and construction.

Beginning in 2018, Motive employees and executives created accounts with names of fake companies to test Samsara’s technology, Samsara alleges. Motive employees, for example, viewed Samsara’s platform more than 20,000 times, according to the statement. In other cases, Motive employees got information by calling Samsara support and posing as customers, the company said in its lawsuit.

Motive copied products like artificial-intelligence-enabled vehicle dashcams and tracking devices years after Samsara released its own versions, Samsara claims. Motive entered the business of managing physical operations not “as a pioneer or an innovator, but as a follower and a consummate copyist,” according to the complaint.

San Francisco-based Samsara, which went public in December 2021, more than doubled its stock price in 2023 as investors focused on AI saw increased value in the data stored in its platform. Some Wall Street analysts, however, have cautioned that Samsara faces increasing competition in the industry.

Motive, also based in San Francisco, said it was valued at $2.85 billion as of May 2022, with investors including Kleiner Perkins and Insight Partners. Annual recurring revenue was more than $250 million and growing at about 70%, the company said at the time.

Samsara said it asked Motive’s leadership and board of directors to stop accessing its platform over a year before filing suit. The startup was sued in October by Omnitracs, another competitor, which accused it of patent infringement. Motive denied the allegations and asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed.

The new case is Samsara Inc. v. Motive Technologies Inc., US District Court, District of Delaware.