NuTonomy, the US-based autonomous vehicle technology developer backed by electronics manufacturer Samsung, has raised $16m in a series A round led by Highland Capital Partners, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
The round also included Samsung’s corporate venturing subsidiary Samsung Ventures, according to TechCrunch, as well as venture capital fund Signal Ventures and Singaporean state-owned investment fund EDBI.
NuTonomy was spun out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013, and is working on software for self-driving vehicles. EDBI contributed capital to the series A round as part of an investment drive by the Singaporean government to create the infrastructure needed for autonomous cars.
NuTonomy was one of eight companies to apply in 2015 to run a self-driving vehicle testing program in the country and hopes to launch an autonomous taxi service there using retrofitted Mitsubishi and Renault electric cars later this year.
Kin Keong Pang, Singapore’s permanent secretary of the Ministry of Transport, told the WSJ in a statement: “We are inviting companies and research institutions to test-bed their technology and concepts here, in real-life, mixed-use traffic conditions.
“We are contributing financial resources in these partnerships and we are able to fast-track regulatory and other administrative approvals, and get the trials and test-beds up and running quickly and with minimum fuss.”
The funding follows a $3.6m seed round featuring Samsung Ventures, Signal Ventures, Fontinalis Partners and angel investor Steven LaValle that closed in January this year.
– Image courtesy of NuTonomy