Autonomous vehicle startup fund Wayve has raised $200m (£147) for their new technology following reported backing from Microsoft and Virgin.
Wayve reaches $200m in start up fund for autonomous car
The British firm plans to use the funds raised to launch their AV2.0 project, which uses cameras - as opposed to of LIDAR (light detection and ranging) - to map out a vehicle’s environment.
Alex Kendall, co-founder and CEO of Wayve , said in a statement: "Today, we have all of the pieces in place to take what we have pioneered and drive AV2.0 forward. We have brought together world-class strategic partners in transportation, grocery delivery and compute, along with the best capital resources to scale our core autonomy platform, trial products with our commercial fleet partners, and build the infrastructure to scale AV2.0 globally."
Part of the funding will also reportedly go towards hire more AI scientists to develop its platform., which currently has around 120 staff based across its offices in London and California.
In describing the autonomous vehicle, Kendall noted that it will be able to "make its own decisions."
He added: "It’s able to learn to do things that are more complex than humans can hand-program, It can make its own decisions based on what it sees and drive in very complex environments like we have in central London."
Chris Philp, Digital Minister at the Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport, told UKTN: “It’s brilliant to see investors around the world backing our innovative homegrown startups with millions in investment… The UK will continue to lead Europe for tech and AI in 2022.”