Shares of General Motors Co. are up more than 10 percent this morning following the news that SoftBank Group Corp. is set to invest a staggering $2.25 billion into its Cruise self-driving car group.

The capital will come from the Japanese telecommunications carrier’s $100 billion Vision Fund, which it set up last year to bet on emerging technologies. GM will reach into its coffers as well on the occasion and infuse an additional $1.1 billion into Cruise.

According to the automaker, the investment gives the unit a valuation of $11.5 billion. GM Cruise Holdings LLC, as the group is formally called, consists of assets that the company gained through the acquisitions of Cruise Automation Inc. and Strobe Inc., two autonomous driving startups. SoftBank will receive a 19.6 percent stake in the group once the investment closes.

Michael Ronen, a managing partner of the SoftBank team that runs the Vision Fund, told Reuters that both his company and GM has agreed not to cash out their stakes for at least seven years. The idea is presumably to ensure all the parties involved are committed to backing Cruise’s efforts for the long term.

The division is currently testing autonomous Chevy Bolts in San Francisco and a suburb of Phoenix, with plans to move into New York in the foreseeable future. The new multibillion-dollar cash infusion should help the group expedite its plans quite a bit.

Cruise is set to receive an initial tranche of $900 million when SoftBank’s investment formally closes. The remaining $1.35 billion will be handed over once its autonomous vehicles are ready for commercial deployment. SoftBank and GM expect to start providing the capital in early 2019.

Also next year, GM plans to make Cruise’s self-driving Chevy Bolts available to consumers via a yet-unspecified ride-hailing service. A recent Bloomberg report indicated this service will be the one being offered by the automaker’s own Maven subsidiary.

As part of the self-driving car push, GM could potentially also partner with Uber Technologies Inc., which counts SoftBank as its largest shareholder. The prospect of such an alliance is particularly likely given that the ride-hailing giant already seems open to adding self-driving autonomous vehicles from outside companies to its network. During a talk Wednesday, Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi divulged that Uber has engaged in talks with Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo to make its self-driving cars available to users.

Image: Cruise