Image: nuTonomy
nuTonomy is a Singapore-based startup developing a fleet of self-driving taxis to make transportation more readily available. With companies like Google and Uber revving up their efforts for self-driving cars, nuTonomy is aiming to outpace the competition by launching commercial offerings by 2018. The startup announced today that it has raised a $16 million in Series A funding.
The funding round is led by Highland Capital Partners and prior investors Fontinalis Partners and Signal Ventures; Samsung Ventures and EDBI (an investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board) also contributed to the round.
nuTonomy is working to position itself as the first company to bring self-driving taxis to the road and has the ambitious goal to do so by 2018. The startup runs a fleet of R&D vehicles in Singapore and has full support from the government. In fact, nuTonomy is the first private company approved to test on public roads.
Dr. Karl Iagnemma, co-founder and CEO of nuTonomy, says:
nuTonomy’s self-driving vehicle software unlocks access to a multi-trillion dollar global ‘robo-taxi’ opportunity. This funding will accelerate the pace of our progress in deploying self-driving vehicles in Singapore and beyond.
nuTonomy is also testing in Michigan and the United Kingdom where they have partnered up with Jaguar Land Rover.
The startup is pioneering a full-fledged fleet of driverless taxis. Autonomous navigation software (nuCore), fleet routing and management, remote vehicle teleoperation, and even smartphone-based ride requesting are in the works.
nuTonomy could be well on Singapore’s roads by 2018, offering citizens with a fast and reliable taxi service free of human drivers. Unless nuTonomy is acquired by a larger company like Google or Uber, it could be a while before the rest of us are hailing autonomous taxis.
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