Self-driving car startup Voyage Auto Inc. said today it has raised $31 million in new funding to ready its self-driving technology for commercialization.

The Series B round will also be used to hire more staff and expand its fleet of self-driving cars. It was led by Franklin Templeton and included Khosla Ventures, Jaguar Land Rover’s InMotion Ventures and Chevron Technology Ventures, the venture arm of multinational energy firm Chevron Corp.

Founded in 2017, Palo Alto, California-based Voyage aims to “supercharge” communities with self-driving cars. The company is developing its own self-driving technology that can be retrofitted onto existing vehicles. Differentiating itself from other players in the market, the company currently provides self-driving cars in retirement communities, already doing so in The Villages, a retirement community in Florida with a population of 125,000 people.

“Many residents within our communities don’t have access to transportation options that work for them,” a spokesperson for Voyage told SiliconANGLE. “Our first driverless product (with no test driver) aims to ensure there’s always a viable option to move around independently within a community. We begin with a self-driving car that can travel point-to-point within our communities at speeds up to 25 miles per hour.”

As The Economist reported in February, targeting retirement communities has advantages as the environment is simpler and easier for an autonomous vehicle to navigate with lower speed limits, less complex road layouts and fewer other vehicles. There’s also demand within these communities by retirees who may require transport but don’t want the expense of owning a vehicle.

Not surprisingly in an industry that at times seems to swap employees as sport, Voyage engineers include those who previously worked for other companies, including Chief Technology Officer Drew Gray, who previously worked at Uber Technologies Inc., Otto, GM Cruise LLC and Tesla Inc., as well as Director of Autonomy Davide Bacchet, who previously worked at NIO and Tesla.

Along with increasing its existing fleet of G2 Self-Driving Cars, Voyage also has a new model, the G3, in the works with improved technology based on the previous models. The existing G2 model is based on a Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan, a popular choice among self-driving car companies.

Including the new funding, Voyage has raised $52 million to date.

Photo: Voyage