Startup Phantom Auto today said it has raised $19 million in a round of financing that should help it to expand the scope of its technology, which allows human drivers to take control of autonomous vehicles.

The Series A round was led by Bessemer Venture Partners, whose partners Byron Deeter and Tess Hatch will join Phantom’s board.

The company, which was founded in 2017, has been working with companies involved in the development and testing of autonomous vehicles that drive on public roads. The idea behind its technology is that a human driver, sitting in a quiet room up to thousands of miles away, can take control of the vehicle in critical situations where driverless systems draw a blank. The technology is designed to get both skeptical regulators and wary passengers comfortable with the idea of letting a machine drive a car.

That’s all well and good, but driverless car systems aren’t easy to develop and many experts agree that it’s likely to be some years before such vehicles become prevalent on our roads. With that in mind, Phantom wants to make the technology it has developed useful in scenarios where autonomous driving systems have already been deployed, such as in industrial parks and shopping centers.

“We continue to be designed into our customers’ stacks who are focusing on AVs on public roads, but it will take some time for autonomous passenger vehicles and commercial trucks to be deployed at scale,” Phantom founder and Chief Executive Officer Shai Magzimof told TechCrunch in a statement.

To that end, Phantom is working with a company called Terberg Group B.V. that builds specialized trucks designed to operate at ports, airports and logistic centers. The two firms have been testing the remote human operation of yard trucks in Atlanta from a control center located 2,500 miles away. The so-called “teleoperation” of driverless vehicles could be crucial to ensuring their safety, Phantom believes.

Here’s a video of Phantom’s remote teleoperation platform in action:

The company argues that while cameras and LiDAR radars enable autonomous vehicles to drive safely in the vast majority of traffic conditions, there might be times when they become confused and unsure how to proceed. Potential hazards that could confuse these systems include unannounced road closures or major accidents. In that case, a human operator sitting in one of Phantom’s remote control centers can step in to control the vehicle and steer it to safety.

Phantom also sees potential for its teleoperation platform with delivery robots, helping them to navigate difficult obstacles such as staircases, for example.

Analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. told SiliconANGLE that it was really only a question of time until the self-driving car would no longer be self-driving, but controlled by remote, at least some of the time.

“There are a lot of benefits to the remote control model as it can it can guide resources more efficiently than an autonomous driving model,” Mueller said. “On the other hand, there are fears about the danger of manipulation. But it’s good to see the capability being created and today it is Phantom Auto’s turn to unveil funding and build out its platform and capabilities.”

Phantom’s Magzimof was featured last year on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio, where he discussed the company’s technology in greater depth:

Photo: Phantom Auto