Outrider raises $53 million to develop autonomous truck technology

Driverless vehicle technology has the potential to transform industries — and indeed, it already has. Stockholm, Sweden-based Einride has raised over $32 million for freight systems that transport logs, shipping containers, and other cargo autonomously. For its part, Alphabet’s Waymo — a pack leader in the market segment — has deployed a commercial robo-taxi service in Phoenix, Arizona.

As for Outrider, previously Azevtec (Autonomous, Zero-Emission Vehicle Technologies), it hopes to do for yard trucks what Waymo did for ride-hailing and Einride did for trucking. The roughly 50-person company, which is headquartered in Golden, Colorado, was founded in 2017 with the goal of automating vehicle movement in freight hubs to reduce costs while improving safety. Today it emerged from stealth with $53 million in seed and series a rounds led by NEA and 8VC, respectively, to see its vision through, and revealed that it’s conducting pilot tests with four Fortune 200 companies and Georgia-Pacific, one of the world’s largest manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp, paper, and more.

Source: venturebeat.com