Self-driving car technology may no longer be the driving force behind the hype. However, companies applying this technology to agricultural, commercial and logistics applications are still attracting venture capital.
Take, for example, Outrider, a Golden, Colorado startup that is developing self-driving electric yard trucks.
Logistics yards are the nerve center of your supply chain. It’s where all those goods (such as those ordered from Amazon and other e-commerce businesses) go from long haul trucks to warehouses and finally to consumers. Today’s workers use diesel-powered yard he trucks to move trailers full of goods around the yard and to and from loading docks.
Outrider has developed an autonomous system that includes motorized yard trucks, software to manage operations, and site infrastructure. While humans may still be needed in logistics yards, autonomous systems handle much of the work, including coupling and uncoupling trailers, connecting and disconnecting trailer brake lines, and monitoring trailer position.
The revenue potential from this system (with approximately 400,000 distribution yards in the US alone) has attracted the attention of many investors. Outrider recently closed his $73 million Series C round led by FM Capital, acquiring new investors Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and his NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital group. New investors B37 Ventures, Lineage Ventures, Presidio Ventures and Sumitomo Corporation’s venture arm ROBO Global Ventures also joined along with existing backers Koch Disruptive Technologies and New Enterprise Associates.
Outrider has raised $191 million since its founding in 2017 under the name Azevtec.
The company has made some progress since its last funding round in the fall of 2020. Outrider founder and CEO Andrew Smith told TechCrunch that the yard truck includes a robotic arm designed to handle harsh environments. Outrider uses 20 autonomous systems at customer sites and their test facilities to complete the system’s final functionality and unique safety mechanisms.
These final adjustments to the system will be completed in 2023, he added. The focus will be on starting commercial operations. America.
The new funding will be used to hire (over 175 employees) both in the U.S. and internationally, moving from testing and validation to large-scale commercial operations, Smith said.
“It’s one thing to drive a vehicle autonomously, and another to create a true industrial system that can operate in harsh environments 20-24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for years.” said Smith. The productization of the system and the roll-in of these final features will allow him to scale to thousands of systems running Outrider software over the next few years. “
