By Nick Carey
(Reuters) – U.S. self-driving truck firm Outrider said on Thursday it had raised $62 million from investors to scale up autonomous truck services in distribution yards for customers in e-commerce, manufacturing and other industries.
The Series D funding round was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies, the venture capital arm of industrial conglomerate Koch Industries, and American venture capital fund New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
It also included fresh investments from Nvidia’s venture capital arm NVentures, and Prologis’ venture capital arm.
With the latest funding, Brighton, Colorado-based Outrider has raised more than $250 million.
Outrider’s system uses self-driving electric yard trucks that can couple or uncouple tractors and trailers using a robotic arm and maneuver between dock doors and parking spots.
Developing fully autonomous vehicles that can go everywhere has proven harder and more expensive than expected.
Investments for robotaxi startups have largely dried up, but funding has continued for startups targeting simpler self-driving vehicle solutions removed from pedestrians and with few human-driven vehicles, such as truck yards or airports.
(Reporting by Nick Carey; Editing by Mark Potter)
