Driverless delivery startup Nuro gets near-$1 billion boost from SoftBank investment
The Japanese SoftBank Vision Fund invested $940 million this week in Nuro, a U.S. startup developing self-driving delivery vehicles.
The huge cash injection comes just a few months after Nuro began driverless grocery delivery trials with Kroger in Arizona. Purpose-built vehicles can drive themselves on public roads and include chilled compartments to keep produce fresh.
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Nuro was founded in 2016 by Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu, who both previously worked at Google's self-driving vehicle division, which later became Waymo.
The Vision Fund began in 2016 with a $100 billion cash pile to invest in technology startups and is investing heavily in autonomous vehicle companies. These investments include $2.5 billion in GM's Cruise automation division, a 20 percent stake in Uber, and an investment in Nvidia, which makes processors used by many autonomous vehicles currently in development.
As for Nuro, it is one of the very few companies currently testing truly driverless vehicles on public roads, with no safety driver onboard. The vehicle, called R1, is designed specifically for autonomous deliveries, has no seats nor space for a driver, and is around half the width of a regular compact car.
This was Nuro's second investment round. It received $92 million during its series A funding round in January 2018.
Nuro says it will use the huge cash injection to increase its fleet of six delivery vehicles and 50 regular cars, with safety drivers behind the wheel.
"We've spent the last two and a half years building an amazing team, launching our first unmanned service, working with incredible partners, and creating technology to improve our daily lives fundamentally," Nuro co-founder Dave Ferguson said in a statement, adding: "This partnership allows us to take the next step in realizing our vision for local commerce and the broad application of our technology."
In addition to working to automate grocery deliveries with Kroger, Nuro has also licensed its driverless technology to Ike, a U.S. autonomous trucking company founded by Apple, Google, and Uber veterans.
SoftBank praised the speed at which Nuro has developed its driverless technology and turned it into a commercial product. The investment giant now wants to increase the development of Nuro's autonomous delivery vehicles.
Michael Ronen, managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, said, "Nuro's world-class team has successfully scaled their self-driving technology out of the lab and into the streets. In just two years, Dave, Jiajun, and their teams have developed Nuro from a concept into a real business using robotics to connect retailers to customers."
