By Chuck Martin
Another self-driving truck startup has raised funds to increase production.
TuSimple announced it has raised $95 million in Series D funding, giving the company a pre-money valuation of $1 billion.
The trucking company already makes daily fully autonomous deliveries in Arizona with plans to expand into Texas, for large shippers and fleets. TuSimple has 12 contracted customers and makes three to five delivery trips per day, according to the company.
The funds are intended to be used to grow the fleet to more than 50 trucks by June.
“Autonomous driving is one of the most complex AI systems humans have ever built,” stated Dr. Xiaodi Hou, founder, president and chief technology officer of TuSimple. “After three years of intense focus to reach our technical goals, we have moved beyond research into the serious work of building a commercial solution.”
TuSimple’s Level 4 fully-autonomous semi-trucks are capable of driving from depot to depot without human intervention.
There were several other recent announcements relating to the funding of companies focused on autonomous vehicles.
Earlier this month, autonomous truck company Ike raised $52 million to further its development of self-driving trucks on highways. Executives at Ike previously worked at companies including Uber, Otto, Apple and Google.
Earlier this week, Softbank announced it was investing $940 million into Nuro, a robotics company that makes self-driving vehicles for deliveries.
Self-driving startup Aurora recently raised $530 million from investors including Amazon.
