US-based autonomous driving software developer Cruise Automation secured $1.15bn in funding yesterday from investors including General Motors (GM), the automotive manufacturer that spun off the company.
Fellow carmaker Honda and telecommunications firm SoftBank’s Vision also participated in the round, which also featured investment manager T. Rowe Price Associates, and which valued it at $19bn post-money.
Cruise is working on software that will enable driverless cars to process data from their sensors and adapt accordingly, particularly in electric vehicles such as GM’s Chevrolet Bolt hatchback.
GM acquired Cruise for $1bn in 2016, three years after it was founded, and spun it back off in 2018. Cruise said yesterday it has now secured $7.25bn in financing over the past year, including a $2.75bn commitment from Honda in October 2018 that will go to joint development of an autonomous car.
SoftBank’s $98.6bn Vision Fund agreed to invest $900m in the company in May 2018, with GM supplying a further $1.1bn, and it will commit another $1.35bn through the deal, once Cruise commercialises its technology, taking a 19.6% stake.
The latest funding will support an ongoing expansion drive that will involve it hiring up to 200 engineers for its Seattle facility between November 2018 and the end of this year, in addition to expanding its San Francisco office capacity.
Dan Ammann, chief executive of Cruise, said: “Developing and deploying self-driving vehicles at massive scale is the engineering challenge of our generation. Having deep resources to draw on as we pursue our mission is a critical competitive advantage.”
Photo courtesy of GM Cruise LLC.
