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Summary
- The self-driving startup software, Oxbotica announced today that it had picked up $47 million in the latest funding round
- The funding involved a mix of investors including BP PLC (LON:BP) and Halma PLC (LON:HLMA) among others
England-based self-driving software startup Oxbotica has disclosed that it has been successful in raising $47 million in a Series B round of funding from an interesting group of strategic and financial investors. The funding would be used for speeding up the firm’s software platform for commercial deployment across its main markets.
The funding was led by the investing arm of UK-based oil and gas major BP PLC (LON: BP). BGF, manufactures of safety equipment Halma PLC (LON: HLMA), pension fund HostPlus, IP Group, Tencent, Venture Science were also part of the investor panel which took part in the funding round.
(Image source: ©Kalkine Group 2020)
The Oxford University spin-out startup Oxbotica was co-founded by Ingmar Posner and Paul Newman in 2014. Posner is an AI professor at Oxford and Newman remains the CTO of Oxbotica. The company is engaged in developing universal autonomy systems that could be used in any type of vehicles ranging from taxis to freight trucks. The flexible technology can be used in the fleet management, navigation, perception, user interfaces, etc that is required to run self-driving vehicles, irrespective of the hardware being used.
Newman, one of the founders of Oxbotica, said that the company has a vision, technology, team, markets, and customers to achieve its goals. Oxbotica has plans for commercial deployment of its software platform across various sectors and key markets, and the current funding would help in speeding up its upcoming plans, he added.
Erin Hallock, Managing Partner of BP ventures, said that it was delighted to invest in Oxbotica and believes that its software could accelerate the market for autonomous vehicles. He also stated that contributing towards accelerating the global revolution in mobility is BP’s strategy to become an integrated energy company.
Till date, Oxbotica has been able to raise about $80 million and hopes that 2021 will be good in terms of business, with deployments and new partnerships.
The company has been associated with a number of high-profile projects. For instance, it has provided sensor technology for Nasa’s Mars Rover.
The company was also involved in a flurry of deals last year which involved makers of lidar sensors, which is considered to be an essential component by many automakers for making self-driven cars.
