Mojio Launches Apps And Services Marketplace For Its Connected Car Platform
Mojio, a connected car platform based around a small, Internet-connected device you plug into your car's OBD port, is launching an app and services store for its platform today. The new Mojio Drive will feature 20 apps …
Context & Ripple Effects
Mojio is making the classic pivot from gadget to platform: instead of selling an OBD dongle as a standalone product, it now runs [[a:entity-mojio-drive|Mojio Drive]], a store where third-party developers distribute apps and services through its device. The move answers a direct competitor — Automatic had already turned its smart driving monitor into an app hub by connecting drivers to more than 20 apps months earlier.
The timing also matters because the ground under dongle makers was shifting toward open standards: by early 2016, Toyota and QNX had signed on to Ford's SmartDeviceLink platform for linking mobile apps to cars, meaning developers would eventually get automaker-sanctioned routes into vehicles. A marketplace is Mojio's bid to be the developer-facing layer before that happens.
First-order effects
- Twenty launch apps give Mojio's existing dongle owners new reasons to keep the device plugged in, while giving developers their first storefront into Mojio's installed base.
Second-order effects
- Automatic's earlier app-hub strategy now faces a head-to-head marketplace rival, pushing both companies to compete on developer terms rather than hardware specs.
- Automaker-backed platforms like SmartDeviceLink become the alternative channel developers weigh against third-party dongles, squeezing standalone device makers on distribution.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, value in the connected-car market migrates from the plug-in hardware itself to whoever owns the software layer between the car's data and app developers — a race Mojio's investors appeared to endorse when it later raised a $30M Series B at a $100M+ valuation (the December 2017 round).
The trend: Connected-car startups are copying the smartphone playbook — turning cheap OBD hardware into app marketplaces just as automakers open their own link standards and competition shifts to who controls the developer layer.