Reuters news on February 1, self-driving technology company Cruise said on Tuesday that the SoftBank Group Vision Fund has agreed to approve a second batch of additional investment of $1.35 billion, Cruise is working to launch a driverless robo-taxi service in San Francisco, USA.
GM CEO Mary Barra said Cruise, which has a majority stake in GM, has strong financial backing from investors such as Honda and Microsoft and does not intend to raise more money from the capital markets in the short term.
Kyle Vogt, founder and president of Cruise, said SoftBank's investment will help Cruise rapidly roll out the technology in San Francisco and beyond. Cruise said it will open the waiting list to the public from Tuesday local time to sign up for the free ride in San Francisco.
In 2018, the SoftBank Vision Fund invested $900 million in the San Francisco-based startup and pledged to invest another $1.35 billion when Cruise Auto was ready for commercial deployment, when Cruise planned for commercial deployment in 2019.
![There is no "neutral country" in the semiconductor world[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)