Lao Huang has just invested in an unmanned delivery service founded by an alumnus of Fudan University.
Jensen Huang steps in to extend the lifespan of an L4 unicorn.
Nuro, the leading autonomous delivery startup in the United States founded by Fudan University alumni, has just completed its latest round of financing, raising $203 million (approximately RMB 1.46 billion).
The investors in this round include both old shareholders and new capital, with Nvidia prominently listed.
Actually, the two parties are not meeting for the first time. They have been in a low - key cooperation for many years.
However, despite the cooperation, Nuro has been established for 9 years. It has had its glorious moments and difficult times, and this is not the first time it has faced a capital crunch, yet Nvidia has never stepped in before.
Jensen Huang's choice to invest at this juncture is quite thought - provoking.
Jensen Huang invests in an L4 unicorn
Nuro, an L4 - level unicorn based in California, USA, has just publicly announced that the company has completed a Series E financing of $203 million, equivalent to approximately RMB 1.46 billion.
This financing was completed in two steps. The first part was $106 million (approximately RMB 761 million) in April this year, and the second part was $97 million (approximately RMB 697 million) just completed.
The investment lineup in this round includes additional investments from "old" investors such as Baillie Gifford, as well as participation from new investors.
The "new faces" include the ride - hailing platform Uber, venture capital firms Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, etc. Of course, the most eye - catching one is Nvidia.
However, Nvidia and Nuro are actually old partners.
Nuro has been using Nvidia's GPU to ensure large - scale autonomous driving data processing and model training. Its latest - generation autonomous driving system Nuro Driver is also equipped with Nvidia's Thor chip.
Source: Screenshot from Nvidia's official website
Recently, Nuro, along with Bosch, joined Nvidia's NVIDIA Halos AI system verification laboratory.
To briefly introduce, NVIDIA Halos is a comprehensive safety system launched by Nvidia this year, integrating Nvidia's full set of automotive hardware, software safety stack, and cutting - edge AI research results in the field of automotive safety.
From this, it can be seen that the cooperation between Nvidia and Nuro is very close.
Source: Nuro's official website
We introduced Nuro not long ago. It has the gene of Google's self - driving cars.
One of the company's two founders is Zhu Jiajun, an alumnus of Fudan University, who was once the chief software engineer of Google's self - driving car team.
The other is Dave Ferguson, the former head of computer vision and machine learning and chief engineer at Google.
In 2016, the two engineers left Google with a group of core members to start a business. They targeted the "last - mile autonomous delivery" track, choosing to establish an autonomous vehicle freight company and build their own cars.
Nuro's first - generation autonomous vehicle products, R1 and R2, are concrete manifestations of this concept:
They have no steering wheel or passenger seats, only cargo compartments. The two generations of products can carry approximately 110 kg and 191 kg respectively.
Due to its novel business model and logic, Nuro has been highly recognized in the US capital market. It became an L4 unicorn in 2019, and by the time it completed its Series D financing in 2021, Nuro's valuation had soared to $8.6 billion (approximately RMB 61.8 billion).
There is a four - year gap between the two rounds of financing. Including this year's Series E financing, Nuro has cumulatively raised approximately $2.3 billion (approximately RMB 16.52 billion) to date.
Its current valuation is $6 billion (approximately RMB 43.1 billion), a 30% decrease compared to the post - investment valuation of the previous round.
However, these are not solely Nuro's problems.
In the past four years, Nuro, along with the entire autonomous driving industry, has undergone tremendous changes.
Nuro's autonomous delivery journey has been full of twists and turns
Since its establishment in 2016, Nuro's journey has been full of ups and downs.
Looking at the timeline, there are roughly two major turning points.
The first turning point was 2021.
Before that, Nuro was a star unicorn in the US autonomous delivery industry, a "darling" pursued by the capital market. Well - known institutions and capitals such as SoftBank, Google, and Toyota had all supported it.
The reason was not only the strength of the startup team but also the novelty of Nuro's "autonomous delivery" model at that time.
Even the US Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave it the green light in terms of policies, making Nuro the first autonomous delivery vehicle in the US permitted to operate without side mirrors or steering wheels.
Well - known enterprises such as US retail giant Kroger, Domino's Pizza, CVS Pharmacy, and 7 - Eleven convenience stores have also extended cooperation invitations to Nuro.
However, around 2021, the US experienced an economic recession and soaring energy prices, which also poured cold water on the autonomous driving industry in the US.
The previously smooth financing channels were once blocked. Most autonomous driving startups entered a cold winter, either withdrawing from the market or being forced to integrate.
Nuro was no exception. It underwent several rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023, but capital remained its primary problem. Nuro had to re - evaluate its business model.
Against this background, Nuro reached its second turning point: abandoning car - building.
In 2024, Nuro finally decided to change its model. It still stays in the autonomous delivery field but no longer builds delivery vehicles itself. Instead, it has switched to a "light - asset" operation, becoming a technology provider —
It provides technology licenses to ride - hailing and delivery companies or sells a complete set of L4 autonomous driving systems.
Currently, Nuro has completed data collection in more than 59 cities across the US and has started road tests in some cities in California, Texas, and Nevada. In April this year, it went overseas for the first time and deployed its road - test fleet in Japan.
Now, it can be seen that this transformation has achieved initial results:
In July, Uber officially announced that it would build its own Robotaxi fleet. The Lucid electric vehicles it uses are equipped with Nuro's autonomous driving system.
Over the next 6 years, the three parties plan to deploy more than 20,000 Robotaxis in the US. The first batch of the fleet will be launched in 2026, and Uber will provide exclusive services.
To support the smooth progress of this project, Uber also said at the time that it would invest "hundreds of millions of dollars" in Nuro. The specific amount was not disclosed, but according to insiders, it far exceeds the $300 million (approximately RMB 2.16 billion) Uber invested in Lucid.
The second wave of this financing, including Uber's investment, is $96 million, far from the "hundreds of millions of dollars" mentioned by Uber and insiders. So it is speculated that Uber will continue to invest in Nuro in the future.
Moreover, as the fleet is gradually launched in the future, it is foreseeable that it will also bring considerable revenue to Nuro.
Now, investors are once again betting on Nuro, including Nvidia's participation. It may be because this new narrative, after years of market testing and verification, has been widely recognized.
Nuro's current business model is similar to that of many booming autonomous driving startups in China. It is a smart solution provider that provides technical support.
In the global L4 industry, after years of winnowing, what remains is basically of high - quality. In the autonomous delivery segment, after years of technological precipitation, it has finally become extremely popular.
At least for now, the enthusiasm from the capital market has reignited the autonomous delivery track —
This week, two leading autonomous delivery players in China have both announced good news of significant financing.
One is Neolix. Multiple sources indicate that after the company completed a RMB 1 billion Series C+ financing in February, it recently received a strategic investment from Didi. The specific amount is unknown.
The other is White Rhino, which has just completed its Series B+ financing, raising nearly RMB 500 million in the Series B round.
In this round of financing for White Rhino, old shareholders such as SF Express and Linear Capital continued to follow up, and new shareholders such as Jun Capital, 360 Fund, and Huatai Zijin also joined. Among them, SF Express made its third investment within a year after its first investment in August 2024.
The commercialization of L4 has never been so lively.