After months of hearty advertising and marketing efforts and large-scale know-how demos throughout the U.S., Nuro has secured $106 million in recent funding to assist scale its autonomous driving know-how and advance industrial partnerships.
The Sequence E spherical brings Nuro’s whole funding raised to $2.2 billion and its valuation to $6 billion. That’s a drop from the $8.6 billion post-money valuation Nuro secured after its $600 million Sequence D in 2021, however most startup valuations have come down from the highs seen through the period of straightforward cash.
Normally, a down spherical may be trigger for concern, as it would mirror diminished investor confidence amongst slower-than-expected progress. That mentioned, it’s a tricky funding setting on the market. It’s additionally doable that in Nuro’s case, the corporate might have much less capital because it pursues a current enterprise pivot that now focuses on licensing its self-driving know-how to automotive OEMs, industrial supply fleets, and ride-hail corporations.
TechCrunch reported on Nuro’s shift in technique within the fall of final 12 months.
Nuro’s earlier go-to-market plan revolved round constructing and working cute on-road supply robots that might carry solely items, not passengers, for companions like Domino’s. However constructing automobiles is dear work, and Nuro was burning money quick.
After a number of rounds of layoffs and placing its manufacturing plans on maintain, Nuro determined to focus as an alternative on beefing out its self-driving know-how, which it had been repeatedly testing in California and Texas. In September 2024, Dave Ferguson, Nuro’s co-founder and president, informed TechCrunch the corporate would depend on developments in AI to speed up its autonomy progress, which might prolong its runway from 1.5 years to three.5 years.
This new spherical doesn’t essentially appear to increase that runway additional. A Nuro spokesperson informed TechCrunch the spherical will help industrial enlargement plans by means of 2027.
Regardless of the down spherical, it’s a great signal for Nuro that its backers are largely present institutional traders – like T. Rowe Worth Associates, Constancy Administration & Analysis Firm, Tiger International Administration, Greylock Companions, and XN LP – in addition to strategic companions.
“We’re excited to see sturdy investor enthusiasm for our Sequence E,” mentioned Jiajun Zhu, co-founder and CEO of Nuro, in an announcement. “Our know-how, years of expertise with driver-out Stage 4 deployments, and concentrate on licensing uniquely place us to assist automakers, mobility platforms, and industrial fleets speed up their autonomy roadmaps.”
Whereas Nuro nonetheless isn’t sharing which strategic traders have joined the spherical, the corporate has present relationships with Uber and Toyota by means of its investor Woven Capital, the enterprise arm of Toyota.
Nuro’s new enterprise mannequin places it in direct competitors with startups like U.Okay.-based Wayve, which additionally hopes to see its know-how powering every thing from private autonomous automobiles to robotaxi fleets.
This text has been up to date with extra details about Nuro’s runway.
