Nuro, a Silicon Valley startup developing self-driving software for delivery and ride-hailing services, has secured $203 million in funding with new investors like Nvidia joining the round.
The recent Series E funding round saw existing investor Baillie Gifford and new backers including Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Nvidia, and Pledge Ventures contributing to Nuro’s growth. Uber, in collaboration with Lucid, also participated in the funding.
Nvidia’s investment in Nuro comes after years of technical partnership, with Nuro utilizing Nvidia GPUs for data processing and model training. The startup’s latest computing model is based on the Nvidia Drive AGX Thor platform.
Nuro, with a total funding of $2.3 billion, has seen its post-money valuation reach $6 billion in the Series E round, reflecting a 30% decrease from its valuation in 2021. The company has shifted its focus to licensing its technology to industry players after strategic changes in recent years.
The pivot towards licensing technology has shown promise, as evidenced by Uber’s plans to deploy a robotaxi service using Nuro’s self-driving tech in Lucid Gravity SUVs. Uber’s significant investments in both Lucid and Nuro signal a strategic shift towards autonomous vehicle technology.
Nuro’s co-founder and president, Dave Ferguson, expressed optimism about the company’s growth trajectory with the new funding, emphasizing a focus on forging commercial partnerships to drive global autonomy initiatives.
