On July 12, May Mobility, a self-driving taxi and shuttle startup based in Michigan, announced that the company has completed a $111 million Series C financing. The round was led by Mirai Creation Fund II, a subsidiary of Japan's SPARX Group, Tokyo Marine Holdings, Toyota Tsusho, Bridgestone Americas, Toyota Ventures, SoftBank, SAIC Motor, Wanxiang, Millennium Technology Value Partners, Cyrus Capital Partners, LG Technology Ventures and Maven Ventures and other institutions followed suit. The company announced in January that it had completed $83 million in financing, so the company's total financing so far has reached $194 million.
May Mobility said the round will be used to increase the number of engineers, expand the global customer base, improve the user experience, and further enhance technology.
In addition to disclosing a new round of funding, May Mobility said the company will continue to work with Toyota to make modifications based on the Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS automotive platform. The Sienna Autono-MaaS vehicle platform, modified by May Mobility, has already started testing and demonstration in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and is expected to be deployed at other public deployment locations by the end of 2022. Toyota Sienna Autono-MaaS, equipped with may Mobility's self-driving system, will be available this fall.
In addition, May Mobility said initial development work has begun on the Toyota e-Palette, a battery-electric vehicle platform designed to further transform mobility in the future.
May Mobility also said it had received commercial support from its investment partners. Tokio Marine and State Farm Ventures became the first U.S. insurers to invest in self-driving cars, and it's important to help design future insurance to support self-driving cars. There's also Japanese tire maker Bridgestone, and May Mobility will use Bridgestone algorithms to track tire health and predict tread wear.
Edwin Olson, CEO of May Mobility, said: "With the conclusion of the latest round of investment, May Mobility will continue to accelerate our technology, business development and platform enhancements around the world. Our new investors, as well as our ongoing strategic partnerships with Toyota and other companies, will enable us to begin fully autonomous commercial operations in 2023 and continue to expand into new markets." ”
Author: Wang Mingyou
Source: First Electric Mesh (www.d1ev.com)