When Porsche partnered with venture studio UP.Labs, the mission was to create six startups over three years all designed to solve the German automaker's biggest problems and be compelling enough as a standalone business it that can attract other customers.

On Porsche's list: software that helps manage and automate the performance of EVs. Pull Systems, the first startup borne out of the partnership, has developed a software product that the two companies say can solve it. Pull Systems, which was unveiled at SXSW 2023, also announced that it raised $5 million in a seed round led by UP.Partners.

"Cars are becoming a combination of software and a battery — and ultimately battery performance," UP.Labs president Katelyn Foley said. "And OEMs need to really get to a place where they can understand both of those aspects in order to stay competitive, because the things that they're really good at are actually the more commodity parts of the car."

Pull Systems is a software-as-as-service platform that provides performance management software to EV suppliers, manufacturers and operators. The product isn't battery management software (BMS), which is technically responsible for collecting data about the battery and communicating with the battery management system. The startup's software is a complement, explained Henry Furman, former venture head of product at UP.Labs, now chief product officer of Pull Systems.

And it has already rolled out to Porsche Taycan vehicles that are on the road today.

The startup developed a library of machine learning models that can analyze and predict vehicle behavior such as driving and charging across the Porsche fleet. That kind of information, coupled with outside data like weather patterns and road conditions, can be used to predict and then inform the automaker or EV owners when a vehicle needs maintenance, when to deploy over-the-air software updates and even boost after-sales revenues.