UPDATED 14:22 EDT / FEBRUARY 07 2019

EMERGING TECH

Amazon backs mammoth $530M round for autonomous driving startup Aurora

Aurora Innovation Inc., an autonomous driving startup that exited stealth just over a year ago, today revealed that it has secured a mammoth $530 million funding round from a who’s who of technology investors.

Famed venture capital firm Sequoia Capital led the consortium. It was joined by Amazon.com Inc., Wall Street heavyweight T. Rowe Price Group Inc. and a half-dozen other institutional backers. The round reportedly gives Aurora a valuation north of $2.5 billion, making it one of the most valuable independent players in the autonomous driving market.

The funding puts the industry spotlight on a startup that has mostly kept its work under wraps. There’s hardly any publicly available information on Aurora’s self-driving platform other than the fact it’s designed for passenger cars and uses Nvidia Corp. silicon. Nevertheless, the credentials of Aurora’s management team have helped it stand out from the pack.   

Aurora is led by Chief Executive Officer Chris Urmson, a former assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University who led development on Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car project. This project would later evolve into an independent business unit, Waymo LLC, that today is seen as the front runner in the autonomous driving market.

Urmson’s two co-founders are also prominent industry figures. Chief Technology Officer Drew Bagnell was previously a lead engineer with Uber Technologies Inc.’s self-driving car group, while Chief Product Officer Sterling Anderson worked at Tesla Inc. as the head of its Autopilot unit.

The founders’ impressive credentials have helped Aurora not just with fundraising but also on the business front. The startup maintains partnerships with several major automakers, including Hyundai Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG, which reportedly tried to acquire it at one point.

The fact that Aurora has managed to catch Amazon’s attention is even more notable. The new $530 million round marks marks the first time the online retail giant has publicly invested in the self-driving car market, which amounts to a significant endorsement.

It also suggests Amazon may be interested in Aurora’s technology. The company recently debuted a homegrown delivery robot and has been experimenting with using drones to ship items to customers. Both initiatives will require Amazon to build autonomous navigation software, an area where it might potentially partner with Aurora to speed up development. Such a collaboration might help the company gain an edge over the other players in the nascent autonomous delivery market segment. 

Photo: Aurora

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU