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The possible funding is notable for two reasons. Namely that it is a smaller round than what the company has previously raised. And that the company is not yet a unicorn. Given its capital history, we would have guessed that it had already reached that threshold.

But first, a reminder of what the company does. Per its , San Francisco-based Proterra 鈥渄esigns and manufactures zero-emission electric transit vehicles and Proterra Powered electric vehicle technology solutions for heavy-duty applications.鈥� In other words, the company not only makes its own electric buses, it also offers up its technology to. According to Proterra, it has sold over 700 electric buses in North America over time. Last year, it reportedly teamed up with German auto giant to electrify some school buses. And Van Hool is using its tech in its electric coaches, according to .

Capital History

The company has raised since it was founded in 2004, according to SA国际传媒 data. Its last raise was a $155 million Series G that it closed in September 2018 that was co-led by Daimler and. Prior to that, it brought in a $55 million Series F in June 2017 led by Al Gore鈥檚 .

That Proterra is looking for new capital now is not a surprise. It鈥檚 around a year after its Series G, putting the company back inside the normal venture-backed fundraising window. At this moment we cannot tell if the firm is raising opportunistically (off the back of outsized investor interest) or need (running low on cash).

We reached out to the company for comment and will update this post if they get back to us.

Either way, the impending capital event — presuming that Proterra does indeed raise the cash — made us consider the EV market itself, with its recent ups and downs.

The EV Market

The electric vehicle market is hot, but not without points of cooling. For example it was bullish when China-based electric car company went public on the U.S. markets in 2018. However, after an initial rise, the firm has since shed most of its value.

It was bullish when China . However, from the Chinese vehicle market are negative, . You can find similar highs and lows in the domestic EV market. Tesla is , but its losses and financial liabilities are .

Electric vehicles therefore feel similar to self-driving cars. Lots of money is going into the space, but the product remains nascent. Electric cars are further along as consumer-ready products than autonomous cars, of course, but the companies behind each technology are still working to get into healthy shape.

As we noted above, extensive capital from traditional car companies has flowed into Proterra. Automakers are also spending heavily on their own EV efforts. In a sense, we鈥檙e seeing a triple-revolution in the automotive market as electric drives, self-driving technologies, and new ownership models grow from curiosities into more common use.

Therefore Proterra shows both the promise (observe the investment it has managed to attract thus far) and cost (the company鈥檚 valuation will tick over the $1 billion mark only after raising nearly $500 million) that such work can entail.

Illustration: .

Ride-hailing companies don’t make money. It’s nearly a law of business. I think that we can add another, related writ to the first, namely that autonomous driving startups always need another billion dollars.

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Or more, as we learned today on the news that has picked up $2.6 billion in what “capital and assets” including a $1 billion primacy investment, a $500 million secondary buy of shares from Ford, among other transactions in the VW-led deal.

You have heard of Argo AI (we’ve covered it here, and here), but I doubt that you knew the scale of capital that the group has needed to power its operations. For example, Argo raised $1 billion in commitments from before the current capital event.

Argo is worth around $7 billion after the transaction.

The new funds mean that Argo, one player in the realm of autonomous driving, is closer to $4 billion in capital raised than it is to $3 billion if I’m adding correctly (there’s some nuance to the deal structure). And what strikes my memory is how that sum isn’t shocking when we consider other huge deals in the niche.

Here’s a quick rundown of some recent deals in the autonomous sector:

• $100 million for LiDar technology in聽 . The San Francisco-based company has now raised $250 million to date.
• $1.15 billion for , part of the General Motors world. The recent transaction follows a , and several smaller investments. The firm’s total capital raised is, if we’re adding correctly this early on a Friday, around $5.5 billion.
• $1 billion for , which had previously found financing from Uber’s own coffers. That became ruinous, so Uber found friends to share the load.
• $940 million for , a company building a “self-driving vehicle made for local goods transportation” picked up nearly $1 billion in February, 2019. This time it was SoftBank money of all things. But what’s clear is that there are folks in the autonomous driving world willing to remove humans entirely from cars. That’s actually cool.
• $530 million for , a San Francisco-based autonomous driving startup that has now raised $690 million after counting its huge . The firm later into its coffers.

Toss in and the picture becomes even more crowded. Bear in mind that all the above rounds are merely the $100 million or greater rounds invested into autonomous driving companies since the start of 2019. Loosen the rules, say, adding rounds between $50 million and $100 million, and you can find even more deals.

All this to say that the venture-backed and corporate-sponsored bet on self-driving technology is getting longer and longer each day. And so far as I can tell from where I sit, only has managed to begin anything approaching .

How long these bets can continue before any player in the space can show even a partial return on investment in other than mark-up terns isn’t clear. But the answer as far as today goes is one word: longer.

Update: Luminar’s total funds raised was updated after publication, per the company’s own information.

Illustration: .

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The Tokyo company said it aims to use the new capital to facilitate commercialization of self-driving technology in private, depopulated and urban areas. Existing backers KDDI Corp., and AISAN TECHNOLOGY Co., also participated in the round. Ironically, Tokyo, Japan-based , which has been investing like crazy in North and Latin America, did not put money in this round.

Founded in December 2015, Tier IV doesn鈥檛 appear to have raised external capital prior to this financing, according to its SA国际传媒 profile.

Tier IV has developed something called 鈥淎utoware,鈥� or what it describes as 鈥渢he world’s first 鈥榓ll-in-one鈥� open-source software for self-driving technology.鈥� It is so far being used by more than 200 organizations, according to Tier IV, including the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), automotive manufacturers, and 鈥渕any self-driving startups.鈥�

The company said it has conducted field operational tests of self-driving vehicles powered by its technology in more than 60 regions in and outside of Japan. All the tests were conducted without any accidents, according to Tier IV.

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The financing sets a post-money valuation of around $19 billion for the San Francisco-based company, 鈥渋nclusive of SoftBank Vision Fund’s previously announced investment commitment,鈥� Cruise said in a issued this morning.

The money came from a group consisting of institutional investors, including funds and accounts advised by and existing backers General Motors, and Honda, according to Cruise.

The latest financing brings the company鈥檚 total raised since inception to $7.25 billion, it said. In May 2018, SoftBank and GM led that gave the company a post-money valuation of $12.7 billion, according to its SA国际传媒 profile.

鈥淒eveloping and deploying self-driving vehicles at massive scale is the engineering challenge of our generation,鈥� said Cruise CEO , in the press release. “Having deep resources to draw on as we pursue our mission is a critical competitive advantage.”

Besides its San Francisco headquarters, Cruise has offices in Seattle, Pasadena, and Phoenix. Its mission is to build 鈥渢he world鈥檚 most advanced self-driving, all electric vehicles.鈥� GM acquired the six-year-old company, formerly known as Cruise Automation, for in 2016. We reached out to the company for more details and will update the story when we have them.

In general, the self-driving space is heating up. Interestingly, SoftBank is funding more than one related initiative. Last month, we reported on how confirmed that its cash-burning self-driving unit received a $1 billion investment from auto giant , Japanese automotive components manufacturer ., and the SoftBank Vision Fund. As part of that, Uber said it would spin out the unit into a newly-formed advanced technologies 鈥渆ntity鈥� focused on 鈥渢he development and commercialization鈥� of automated ride-hailing services.

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As part of that, Uber will spin out the unit into a newly-formed advanced technologies 鈥渆ntity鈥� focused on 鈥渢he development and commercialization鈥� of automated ride-hailing services. Under the terms of the agreement, Toyota and Denso put in a combined $667 million and SoftBank Vision Fund will invest $333 million, 鈥渧aluing the new Uber ATG entity at $7.25 billion on a post-money basis,鈥�

Last month, we reported that this deal may occur so its confirmation is not entirely shocking. In particular, Toyota鈥檚 role is not surprising considering the automaker already invested $500 million in Uber as part of a deal last summer. In its latest announcement, Uber said the further investment and expanded partnership 鈥渂uilds upon the progress made to date, deepening the companies鈥� collaboration in designing and developing next-generation autonomous vehicle hardware.鈥� Toyota will also pony up to an additional $300 million over the next three years to help toward that goal.

As we鈥檝e extensively written, Uber is on the path to going public, having confidentially filed preliminary paperwork last December to list its shares on the open market in an initial public offering (IPO). It also filed an S-1 last week.

But its autonomous vehicle division has been a source of contention with investors. TechCrunch has reported : The ride-hailing company was spending $20 million a month on developing self-driving technologies, according to court documents unsealed last month. Meanwhile, 聽Uber spent about $750 million on building out self-driving technologies before scaling back its effort in 2018.

The company鈥檚 impending IPO puts greater pressure on the money-losing Uber to control costs and lower losses. It posted an operating loss of over $1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018 alone, for example. Uber can鈥檛 afford to fight a price war with global ride-hailing players while also shouldering stiff technology costs relating to self-driving cars alone.

That fact doesn鈥檛 diminish its need to keep apace in the self-driving movement going forward; Uber once argued that winning the self-driving race was existential to its business. And now with more money to invest, and a stronger partner set, the company is likely better suited to meet its own expectations.

All the same, if the self-driving group has consumed hundreds of millions of dollars to-date, how long this fresh billion will last is unclear. Perhaps Uber will have to go back to the well before the tech is done. That valuation will then have to be defended.

And that鈥檚 something that , , and others are spending heavily to combat.

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As by The Verge, has just raised $45 million for its LIDAR technology, an essential piece of hardware used to see objects on the road for self-driving cars. The startup claims that its take on LIDAR is better than its competitors due to its small physical footprint, light energy use, and ability to process 鈥渧elocity and motion of a pedestrian or object,鈥� as told to The Verge by co-founder .

However, it鈥檚 not the only startup focusing on LIDAR that has raised significant sums of money. LIDAR-centric startups have attracted over . A large chunk of that funding has gone to , which in one known corporate round.

However, according to SA国际传媒 data, Aeva鈥檚 latest round is the largest deal documented in the LIDAR sector this year, making up over 50 percent of total dollars invested into the space since the start of 2018. The round also puts LIDAR startups funded in 2018, in terms of known total dollars, on pace to match 2017鈥檚 dollar volume of $136 million.

In general, VCs are putting a lot of money into seeing the road accurately with improvements in software, hardware, and artificial intelligence. With a $45 million check, Aeva can consider itself a valid contender. But it鈥檚 far from being a winner, even with its talent.

Leaving Apple means leaving Apple鈥檚 titanic wealth. That puts the founders of Aeva at a financial disadvantage, as its private investors cannot hope to match Cupertino鈥檚 wealth. However, smaller startups can be more nimble than giants, sometimes even at so-called frontier tech.

This is a great race to watch.

Top Image Credit: .

Some startups, like Zoox, are trying “to make the whole widget” by designing a car and its tech from bumper to bumper.

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, a rather stealthy startup based out of Mountain View, appears to be taking a different approach. It is designing and developing core self-driving tech which can be used to retrofit existing cars or enhance new ones. In this way, Ghost is similar to , another company in the space which SA国际传媒 News covered before.

Today, the company filed with the SEC indicating it has raised $15 million in outside funding.

Who’s Involved

The filing lists the company’s two co-founders: CEO and CTO Dr. .

Prior to Ghost Locomotion, Hayes co-founded (which went public in 2015) and served a stint in the office of Yahoo’s CTO. Uhlig earned a PhD in computer science at in Germany before starting his career at IBM Watson Research. After IBM, but before Ghost Locomotion, he was the CTO of and a systems architect at .

The filing also lists a number of non-executive directors who have probably invested in the company.

These likely investors include:

• , a partner at who made a prior in Lyft back in 2010. Khosla鈥檚 recent automotive investments including dashcam maker Owl Cameras and autonomous transport fleet manager .
• , the seventh employee at who left to start , which aims to improve lithium-ion batteries.
• , a managing director at who led his firm鈥檚 investments in Pure Storage, John Hayes鈥檚 prior startup.

There’s reason to believe Ghost Locomotion has some prior funding, but it’s difficult to tell how much. We were unable to find historical regulatory filings by the company.

However, it appears as though the company was initially incubated out of Sutter Hill Ventures. Ghost Locomotion’s CEO did a six-month stint as an entrepreneur in residence at the venture firm immediately prior to starting the company.

At time of writing, the company’s lists 29 employees. Considering that Bay Area software engineering salaries, specifically specialists in self-driving, are very high, the company has presumably been able to access plenty of capital to date.

No prior relationship between Khosla Ventures and Ghost Locomotion could be found, leading us to conclude that Khosla Ventures is a new investor in the company.

What The Company Is Building

From the , it’s difficult to tell what, exactly, it is building.

It suggests that Ghost’s system involves “a few discreet cameras.” Beyond that, hardware details are scant. But the experience its marketing copy portrays is clear.

“Ghost is a driver, designed to drive like you,” says one snippet. “Ghost transforms your commute, freeing your hands from the wheel and your mind from the road,” says another.

One of the biggest hurdles to building autonomous vehicles is obtaining a corpus of data to train the statistical models which, in turn, govern vehicle behavior.

A company like , by virtue of its mapping efforts, was well-positioned to launch a self-driving vehicle division.1 It already had the data.

So what’s a startup to do? Find a way to gather that data itself.

Ghost Locomotion’s website says its technology is “Trained by observing millions of real-world miles driven by real people.”

Where is it obtaining that data? In April, Ghost Locomotion launched a dashboard camera app, , on the Google Play Store. The app serves as a dashcam, but it also logs users’ GPS locations to let them track mileage and log trips. It offers unlimited cloud storage to its users.

The app’s says it “collects and analyzes video and driving sensor recordings to provide an enriched presentation to [the user]” and will store any “source data […] in an anonymized fashion.”

From just the time-stamped location data, it’s possible to derive average speed, how fast traffic moves in certain segments of road, and how that changes throughout the day. And that doesn’t account for what can be found in video or sensor data.

As far as strategies for bootstrapping a driving dataset go, launching a dashcam app is tried and true.

That’s what , another self-driving car company, did. In our coverage of a $5 million fundraise by Comma, we noted that it also launched a dashcam app, presumably to gather similar types of data.

As far as Ghost Locomotion鈥檚 鈥渄river鈥� goes though, it鈥檚 unclear when it will ship or what its final form is. Early adopter-types can reserve theirs today.

Self-driving car technology is one of those fields that constantly feels 鈥渏ust a few years away鈥� from maturity. All these companies need to do is develop a system that鈥檚 as safe as a human behind the wheel. It鈥檚 not rocket science!

It鈥檚 easier said than done, of course, but that doesn鈥檛 stop entrepreneurs from trying.

滨濒濒耻蝉迟谤补迟颈辞苍:听

The recipients of this funding frenzy, at least in terms of dollars, are startups looking to build their own fleet of electric and autonomous vehicles. Following car ambitious car manufacturers are startups that provide software and hardware for EV and autonomous vehicles. And in a couple cases, there are even startups in the region that would prefer to ditch the standard vehicular model altogether.

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What and who will win out is not clear. However, the bets are known and the dollars are large. And it might just be enough to give U.S.-based startups operating in the same sectors a run for their money.

China Accelerates

Prior to 2015, round counts and dollars invested into China-based EV and autonomous startups were meager.¹ According to SA国际传媒, a touch over $23 million was invested across eight deals over a period of seven years. All of the known deals in this period were early stage.

However, deal counts and dollar amounts didn鈥檛 stay stagnant forever, as the chart below shows:

A boom of investment started in 2015 with $528 million in known fundings, dwarfing known total investments made into the autonomous and EV sectors from years prior. But the real action into China-based autonomous and EV startups didn鈥檛 come until last year.

Known deals made in 2016 doubled compared to the prior year from four investments to eight. Additionally, funding totals hit $2.1鈥攓uadrupling the previous year鈥檚 totals. But of the eight startups that attracted investor interest, only two鈥擶M Motors and LeSee鈥攚alked away with the bulk of known funds, with each receiving investments totaling $1 billion.

Looking at the current year, funding has continued to rise while round counts double year-over-year. A few large deals put 2017 to comfortably ahead 2016鈥檚 funding totals. is responsible for a touch over half of the year鈥檚 funding with a $1.6 billion haul. Following BAIC is which pulled in a flat billion as part of its series D funding rounding announced in November.

The Backseat Drivers

So what could possibly account for such a feverish increase in funding? There are a confluence of factors.

China, which suffers from pollution issues, has, in recent years, pushed for the adoption of electric vehicles. The result is that China is now the world鈥檚 largest electric vehicle market.

Additionally, as with American tech giants, there is an interest amongst established Chinese tech incumbents to be on the front-end of autonomous driving. Baidu, China鈥檚 largest search engine, has made a number of overtures in the autonomous driving and electric vehicle space. Meanwhile, Tencent, the corporate parent behind China鈥檚 largest social network WeChat, has not been afraid to pour large sums into the sector as well.

In China, where the state has a will, and tech has the money, funding for the future of transport finds a way. But not all startups in the region are approaching the electric and autonomous vehicle market the same way.

All In One

While Tesla may be the most boisterous electric and autonomous vehicle manufacturer, there are a few firms in China looking to own the road.

The largest recipient of funding in this particular category is NIO. The electric vehicle startup manufacturer, based in Shanghai, has raised a total of $2.1 billion. So far, it has not sold a vehicle; however, the company is aiming to put cars on U.S. roads in 2020, . But it鈥檚 not the only Shanghai-based startup to compete in the electric vehicle space.

WM Motor has received over $1 billion in funding for its electric vehicle efforts. The startup has attracted interest from Baidu, Baidu Capital, and Tencent Holdings鈥攁ll of which have ambitions to compete in artificial intelligence, a critical component in autonomous driving. These same investors also partook in NIO鈥檚 funding rounds as well.

It鈥檚 important to note, however, that large rounds do not guarantee success. A number of electric vehicle startups with big ambitions have struggled immensely to bring their cars to market. However, it鈥檚 possible that the mold can be broken鈥攁s long as they can look ahead.

Seeing The Road Ahead

For autonomous vehicles to move forward, an array of sensors and software need to work in concert to get passengers to and from their destinations safely. And China鈥檚 startups are hoping to make that happen.

, based in Beijing, China, has raised $83 million to fund the creation of its 鈥渇ull stack autonomous driving technologies,鈥� according to its website. This includes the development of sensors and algorithms. It counts Nvidia, which has made AI a focal point, as one of its investors.

Also helping put autonomous cars on the road is . The Beijing-based startup has raised $51 million to develop high definition maps with the help of deep learning and crowdsourced data. Its list of investors include another fellow Chinese startup, NIO. The electric vehicle startup participated in the Momenta.ai鈥檚 $46 million series B as a lead investor.

But not everything that鈥檚 electric in China is based on the standard automobile. Where roads are crowded and traffic is fierce, more nimble transportation options have sprung up.

Ditching The Car

Although bikesharing is experiencing its own investment boom in China as an alternative transportation option, sometimes a bit more speed that takes up a lot less space is required to get around.

is attempting to fill that need with its own 鈥渟mart motorcycles,鈥� according to SA国际传媒. The company鈥檚 all-electric motorcycles have attracted seed investment totaling $800,000., a competitor to Evoke based in Shanghai, has also taken a crack at the electric motorcycle market. And in a moderately amusing twist, has raised $1.5 million to create a self-balancing electric unicycle.

Whatever China鈥檚 transportation preference are, the startups headquartered there are betting that its customers want them to be autonomous and electric. And the investors backing them agree.

1. When observing the funding environment for China-based startups operating in the autonomous and electric vehicles sectors, startups that also provide software or hardware as third-party vendors were included in the dataset. Investments via private equity did not make the cut. You can view the list of funding rounds .

On the heels of , Chinese startup has announced . The company intends to use the latest amount of funding to improve its self-driving functions and further its road testing capabilities.

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According to SA国际传媒, the startup had already raised a $20 million series B a touch over three months ago. Its investors include , a US-based semiconductor company known for its successful .

But while TuSimple’s latest round is notable given its timing and quick investment turnaround, it’s not the only Chinese startup operating in the automative space to receive large chunks of funding.

In fact, the pace of investment into these Chinese-based automotive startups has continued to grow over the years, as the chart below shows:

As we can see, known deal amounts into China-based automotive startups remained relatively light for a few years. But since 2015, the known deal amounts and number of rounds has been steadily increasing. So what could account for the jump? There are myriad reasons.

The country suffers from heavy traffic problems (which autonomy could potentially help alleviate), contributing to severe pollution issues. There is also聽 to increase the production of electric and autonomous vehicles. The state also plans to be a leader in artificial intelligence, an essential component to developing successful self-driving technology.

But to actually get there, China is likely going to need continued investing in locally-based automotive startups. And based on the chart above, the state and its investors are willing to pour in the cash to make it happen鈥攎aking it likely we’ll see even more Chinese startup deals in the near future and throughout 2018.

From the聽:

Here鈥檚 how VCs rank as trendspotters

• Venture investors are known for being early to get on board with a new technology trend. But they also begin sliding off the trend sooner than the general population, according to a SA国际传媒 News analysis that looked at聽four recent technical crazes: drones, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and blockchain.

FCC plans net neutrality repeal

• The Federal Communications Commission released a plan to dismantle net neutrality regulations that prohibit internet service providers from blocking sites or charging companies for speedier content delivery. The proposal is seen as a victory for big service providers like Comcast and AT&T but was widely opposed by content providers and the internet startup community.

Uber concealed massive hack

• Hackers stole personal data of 57 million聽聽customers and drivers in 2016, including email addresses, phone numbers and some 600,000 driver鈥檚 license numbers. This week, the company ousted its chief security officer for his role in concealing the data breach, which included a $100,000 payment to the attackers.

Divergent 3D raises up to $107M

• , a Los Angeles-based developer of technology to incorporate 3D metal printing into vehicle design and manufacturing, is raising up to $107 million in a Series B financing led by Hong Kong鈥檚 O Luxe Holdings and joined by Horizons Ventures, Shanghai Alliance Investment Limited and Altran Technologies.