[ad_1]
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced tonight a $ 1 billion investment from the Japanese conglomerate Soft Fund Vision Fund, Toyota automaker and automotive components supplier Denso. The news confirms an article from The Wall Street Journal published earlier this week, stating that Uber was about to secure funding for its standalone division, called Uber Advanced Technologies Group, or UberATG.
Khosrowshahi announced the investment with a tweet, which included a picture of the CEO alongside executives from SoftBank, Toyota and Denso. According to the attached press release, the capital injection values Uber's self-sustaining unit at $ 7.25 billion, ahead of the company's initial official public offering, likely later in the year. . Uber's IPO, for which no date has yet been set, is expected to bring about $ 10 billion to the growing company and give it a value of up to $ 100 billion. WSJ reports.
Under the terms of the investment, Toyota and Denso will jointly contribute $ 667 million, while the SoftBank Vision Fund will contribute $ 333 million. The agreement should not surprise those who closely monitor Uber's finances; The company received a $ 500 million investment from Toyota in August 2018 to accelerate its self-driving efforts, including putting a refurbished Toyota Sienna fleet on the road to test standalone technology. Uber and deploy it commercially from 2021.
"This investment and our strong partnership with the Toyota Group reflect the incredible work of our ATG team to date and the bright future of this important project, alongside great partners," Khosrowshahi said in a statement. "The development of automated driving technology will transform transportation as we know it, making our streets safer and our cities more livable. Today's announcement, along with our ongoing supplier-supplier relationships, will help maintain Uber's position at the forefront of this transformation. "
The financing is a sign of confidence in UberATG of the Japanese finance and automotive industries after a few years of bumpy research and development in the United States. Last month, the company escaped criminal charges in the first death ever suffered by an autonomous car, which took place last March and killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. The fatal accident ended Uber's test program in Tempe, Arizona, but the company has since resumed testing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where UberATG's headquarters are located.
In addition to the accident, UberATG was involved in a trade secret lawsuit with the free-standing company Waymo, owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet, a dispute that resulted in an unexpected settlement in February after only one week of negotiations in an audience room. Partly because of the lawsuit, Uber closed its autonomous truck unit, although the company let the division's engineers work on an internal lidar project, and continues to develop a software platform software for delivery companies called Uber Freight.
[ad_2]
Source link