This image shows just how many companies are playing in the connected car space

Think about the term “connected cars” and chances are you’ll think about how private cars of the future will interact with cars and objects around them using the internet. But it’s actually a lot more complicated than that.

Certainly, many companies do build products for private cars: the likes of Alpine and TomTom. But there are actually multiple categories of company working in multiple areas of the connected car space.

These range from car-sharing services like Zipcar and Turo (formerly RelayRides) to e-hailing outfits such as Uber and Lyft. And then there are smart parking solutions, services aimed at public transport, telematics companies, fleet management and mapping services.

For an idea of how complex the space is, check out this graphic from VentureScanner. It contains some of the bigger players that company has on its radar.

The company is currently tracking over 577 companies in 15 categories across 39 countries, with a total of US$14.9-billion in funding.