AImotive, a Hungary-based developer of driverless car software, has completed a $38m series C round that included subsidiaries of industrial technology provider Robert Bosch, networking equipment maker Cisco and electronics producer Samsung.
Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Cisco Investments and Samsung Catalyst Fund were joined by venture capital firms B Capital Group and Prime Ventures, which co-led the round, as well as Draper Associates, Inventure and Day One Capital.
AImotive is developing autonomous car software equipped with camera sensors and vision processing technology for use by automotive equipment producers and mobility service providers. It bases much of its design and development practices on the aviation technology sector.
Laszlo Kishonti, AImotive’s founder and chief executive, said: “We want to reach similar levels of safety on the roads as have been reached in the skies. The aviation industry, which is 10,000 times less dangerous per mile than road transport, relies heavily on simulation.
“We are applying that methodology to develop safe autonomous software systems, and our team has already realised astonishing time and cost benefits, allowing us to quickly bring new features to road testing.”
The series C capital will fund development of the technology, and AImotive plans to extend a testing initiative that already encompasses Hungary, France and California to elsewhere in the US as well as China and Japan.
Robert Bosch Venture Capital led AImotive’s $2.5m series A round in 2015, back when the company was still known as Adasworks, investing together with Inventure, OTP-Day One Seed Investment Fund and Draper Associates founder Tim Draper.
The company had raised $10.5m altogether from investors also including graphics processing chipmaker Nvidia as of November 2016, according to Reuters.