The Next Step
Perceptive Automata raises Series A from leaders in neuroscience and the automotive industry
We’ve been pretty busy at Perceptive Automata since we came out of stealth and announced our seed funding in July.
Today, we are happy to share the news that we’ve raised a $16M Series A led by JAZZ Venture Partners, with participation from Toyota AI Ventures, Hyundai CRADLE, and existing investors First Round Capital and Slow Ventures, among others. We are also honored to announce that John Harris from JAZZ will be joining our Board of Advisors and Phin Barnes from First Round Capital will be joining as a Board Observer. This Series A brings our total funding to $20M and it will allow us to step up our recruiting efforts and hire top engineering talent to further refine our human intuition AI software for global markets. The funding will also allow us to grow our product development and customer implementation teams.
When we set out to achieve the hardest problem for self-driving cars — understanding and predicting humans on the road — we had no idea that we would end up working with such experienced investors who understood and believed in our vision and solution to the problem.
Working with the VC arms of two major automobile manufacturers like Toyota and Hyundai, in addition to a firm like JAZZ that is fully committed to our behavioral science approach, is incredibly validating for us. When self-driving cars are deployed, each vehicle will require software that goes further than just identifying humans on the road. Though Toyota and Hyundai will not have access to customer or confidential data, we believe that having the financial backing of established automotive companies confirms that our technology is imperative for the safe roll-out of self-driving cars.
Toyota and Hyundai have ambitious plans in the self-driving space. Hyundai plans to bring self-driving vehicles to market by 2021, using technology from Aurora and Baidu, and Toyota has invested billions in self-driving car technology. We believe that a creating a consortium of automotive industry leaders as investors will help us in our pursuit to work with as many automotive companies as possible while remaining protective of our customers’ and partners’ data.
Self-driving vehicles and other forms of automated transportation will be the biggest paradigm shift on our streets since the transition from horse and buggy to automobile, and we will continue to seek collaborative partnerships with OEMs, transportation network companies, and technology companies to prepare for a driverless future that is safe for everyone.
If you’re interested in following our journey, connect with us on Twitter @perceptive_auto. If you’d like to join us in pursuing our mission, check out job openings at perceptiveautomata.com/careers/.
