INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Jason Rowley is a venture capital and technology reporter for Crunchbase News
More posts by this contributorAt some point in the future, while riding along in a car, a kid may ask their parent about a distant time in
the past when people used steering wheels and pedals to control an automobile
Of course, the full realization of the “auto” part of the word — in the form of fully autonomous automobiles — is a long way off,
but there are nonetheless companies trying to build that future today.However, changing the face of transportation is a costly business, one
that typically requires corporate backing or a lot of venture funding to realize such an ambitious goal
A recent funding round, some $128 million raised in a Series A round by Shenzhen-based Roadstar.ai, got us at Crunchbase News asking a
question: Just how many independent, well-funded autonomous vehicles startups are out thereIn short, not as many as you’d think
To investigate further, we took a look at the set of independent companies in Crunchbase’s “autonomous vehicle” category that have
raised $50 million or more in venture funding
After a little bit of hand filtering, we found that the companies mostly shook out into two broad categories: those working on sensor
technologies, which are integral to any self-driving system, and more “full-stack” hardware and software companies, which incorporate
sensors, machine-learned software models and control mechanics into more integrated autonomous systems.Full-stack self-driving vehicle
companiesLet’s start with full-stack companies first
The table below shows the set of independent full-stack autonomous vehicle companies operating in the market today, as well as their focus
areas, headquarter’s location and the total amount of venture funding raised:Note the breakdown in focus area between the companies listed
In general, these companies are focused on building more generalized technology platforms — perhaps to sell or license to major automakers
in the future — whereas others intend to own not just the autonomous car technology, but deploy it in a fleet of on-demand taxi and other
transportation services.Making the eyes and ears of autonomous vehiclesOn the sensor side, there is also a trend, one that’s decidedly
more concentrated on one area of focus, as you’ll be able to discern from the table below:Some of the most well-funded startups in the
sensing field are developing light detection and ranging (LiDAR) technologies, which basically serve as the depth-perceiving “eyes” of
autonomous vehicle systems. CYNGN integrates a number of different sensors, LiDAR included, into its hardware arrays and software tools,
which is one heck of a pivot for the mobile phone OS-maker formerly known as Cyanogen.But there are other problem spaces for these sensor
companies, including Nauto’s smart dashcam, which gathers location data and detects distracted driving,
or Autotalks’s DSRC technology for vehicle-to-vehicle communication
(Back in April, Crunchbase News covered the $5 million Series A round closed by Comma, which released an open-source dashcam app.)And
unlike some of the full-stack providers mentioned earlier, many of these sensor companies have established vendor relationships with the
automotive industry. Quanergy Systems, for example, counts components giant Delphi, luxury carmakers Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz and
automakers like Hyundai and Renault-Nissan as partners and investors. Innoviz supplies its solid-state LiDAR technology to the BMW Group,
according to its website.Although radar and even LiDAR are old hat by now, there continues to be innovation in sensors
According to a profile of Oryx Vision’s technology in IEEE Spectrum, its “coherent optical radar” system is kind of like a hybrid of
radar and LiDAR technology in that “it uses a laser to illuminate the road ahead [with infrared light], but like a radar it treats the
reflected signal as a wave rather than a particle.” Its technology is able to deliver higher-resolution sensing over a longer distance
than traditional radar or newer LiDAR technologies.Can startups stack up against big corporate competitorsThere are plenty of autonomous
vehicle initiatives backed by deep corporate pockets
There’s Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, which is subsidized by the huge amount of search profit flung off by Google
Uber has an autonomous vehicles initiative too, although it has encountered a whole host of legal and safety issues, including holding the
unfortunate distinction of being the first to kill a pedestrian earlier this year.Tesla, too, has invested considerable resources into
developing assistive technologies for its vehicles, but it too has encountered some roadblocks as its head of Autopilot (its in-house
autonomy solution) left in April
The company also deals with a rash of safety concerns of its own
And although Apple’s self-driving car program has been less publicized than others, it continues to roll on in the background
Chinese companies like Baidu and Didi Chuxing have also launched fill-stack RD facilities in Silicon Valley.Traditional automakers have
also jumped into the fray
Back in 2016, for the price of a cool $1 billion, General Motors folded Cruise Automation into its RD efforts in a widely publicized
And, not to be left behind, Ford acquired a majority stake in Argo AI, also for $1 billion.That leaves us with a question: Do even the
well-funded startups mentioned earlier stand a chance of either usurping market dominance from corporate incumbents or at least joining
their ranks Perhaps.The reason why so much investor cash is going to these companies is because the market opportunity presented by
autonomous vehicle technology is almost comically enormous
It’s not just a matter of the car market itself — projected to be over 80 million car sales globally in 2018 alone — but how we’ll
spend all the time and mental bandwidth freed up by letting computers take the wheel
It’s no wonder that so many companies, and their backers, want even a tiny piece of that pie.
