Autonomous driving technology creator AImotive has just landed $38 million in a Series C funding round as it seeks to gain a lead on some of its better-known competitors.

The round was led by B Capital Group and Prime Ventures, with participation from Cisco Investments, Samsung Catalyst Fund and earlier investors Robert Bosch Venture Capital, Inventure, Draper Associates and Day One Capital.

Based in Budapest, Hungary, AImotive is one of a number of smaller players to have emerged in the autonomous car space, providing competition to the likes of Google LLC and Uber Technologies Inc. The company is focused on creating the technology that powers self-driving cars rather than the vehicles themselves. Its system combines affordable, off-the-shelf camera sensors with internally developed artificial intelligence-based vision processing software that can be integrated with various car models.

AImotive has already made considerable progress, and is currently testing its autonomous car systems on public roads in California, France and Hungary. The company is planning to expand its tests to roads in China, Japan and additional U.S. states this year.

Eventually, AImotive hopes to be able to sell its autonomous driving system to car manufacturers, mobility service providers and related firms. The company is already partnering with several established automotive industry players to make that happen, including the Volvo Group and Groupe PSA, which owns the Peugeot, Citroën, DS, Opel and Vauxhall brands.

The main area of focus for AImotive is safety, with the company aiming to make self-driving cars as safe as air travel, said founder and Chief Executive Officer Laszlo Kishonti.

“We want to reach similar levels of safety on the roads as have been reached in the skies,” Kishonti said. “The aviation industry, which is 10,000 times less dangerous per mile than road transport, relies heavily on simulation. We are applying that methodology to develop safe autonomous software systems.”

AImotive said it will use the new funds to further the development of its autonomous driving systems. The company is also planning to showcase its technology at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.

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