SoftBank Leads $940M Investment in Autonomous Delivery Startup Nuro
Nuro secures nearly $1 billion from the SoftBank Vision Fund to expand its driverless delivery bots and scale its local commerce operations.
SoftBank Vision Fund leads a massive $940 million funding round into Nuro, pushing the autonomous delivery startup's total raised capital past the $1 billion mark. Nuro plans to use this substantial financial boost to grow its delivery services, secure additional retail partners, expand its workforce, and scale up its fleet of custom self-driving vehicles.
The company designs and operates a specialized unmanned vehicle called the R1, which features two compartments capable of holding up to six grocery bags each. Nuro currently operates a fully driverless delivery service without a safety driver behind the wheel in Scottsdale, Arizona, following a successful pilot program with the grocery chain Kroger.
Beyond its own delivery robots, Nuro actively diversifies its business by licensing its proprietary self-driving technology stack to Ike, an autonomous trucking startup. This lucrative licensing agreement provides Ike with a complete copy of Nuro's multi-billion-dollar software, while Nuro retains a minority stake in the trucking company to broaden its overall technological impact.