Hyundai is spending close to $1B to keep self-driving startup Motional alive

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Motional's Hyundai Ioniq 5 AV with Uber logo

Image Credits: Motional

Hyundai has agreed to spend nearly $1 billion on Motional, an investment that will give the automaker a majority stake while providing the self-driving startup with the necessary capital to keep operating.

The Korean automaker invested $475 million directly into Motional as part of a broader deal that includes buying out joint venture partner Aptiv. As part of the deal, Hyundai will spend another $448 million to buy 11% of Aptiv’s common equity interest in Motional, according to information revealed Thursday in Aptiv’s first-quarter earnings report.

Aptiv also shared that it expects to reduce its common equity interest in Motional from 50% as of March 31 to about 15%, leaving Hyundai with the remaining 85% control. Aptiv chairman and CEO Kevin Clark flagged in January that the company would reduce its ownership interest in Motional. The company said at the time that it would stop allocating capital to Motional due to the high cost of commercializing a robotaxi business and the long road ahead to profits.

On Thursday, Aptiv reduced its full-year net sales forecast for 2024 to be between $20.85 billion and $21.45 billion, down from between $21.3 billion and $21.9 billion.

Motional confirmed the new funding round and increased stake from Hyundai but didn’t confirm Aptiv’s numbers. Hyundai, however, said the amounts listed in Aptiv’s earnings report were accurate.

hyundai motional money
Image Credits: Aptiv 

Motional started as Boston-based autonomous vehicle startup nuTonomy in 2013, before being acquired by Delphi for $450 million. Delphi would later split its business with the Aptiv unit absorbing nuTonomy. The entity became Motional under a $4 billion Hyundai-Aptiv joint venture in 2019. While it’s clear from Aptiv’s earnings report that the company is trying to manage risks and optimize finances amid a less positive outlook, the company’s retreat, and Hyundai’s step forward, raises questions about Motional’s future.

In March, TechCrunch reported that Motional secured a bridge loan for an undisclosed amount as a lifeline while the AV startup secured its next round of longer-term funding. While it’s likely that this funding round from Hyundai fits that bill, Motional has not responded to TechCrunch’s request for more information about whether it will need to acquire more investors in the future.

Motional has been testing its autonomous vehicles with a safety driver behind the wheel in Boston, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Singapore. The company’s go-to-market strategy involves partnering with existing ride-hail platforms like Uber, Lyft and Via to give customers rides. Motional has stated its goal of launching a robotaxi service using driverless Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles in 2024.

Motional and Hyundai announced plans in November 2023 to co-develop production-ready versions of the all-electric Ioniq 5 robotaxi at the automaker’s new innovation center in Singapore, the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore (HMGICS). During CES 2024, Motional also announced plans to work with Kia on a next-generation vehicle that will enter commercial operations later this decade, with initial development stages beginning this year.

Motional’s financial shifts come as the robotaxi industry continues to face uncertainty. The startup has been inching slowly toward commercialization, launching pilots in at least five cities. Crucially, Motional has not yet begun charging for rides or deliveries yet. Meanwhile, among the competition, Waymo continues to expand its fully driverless, paid robotaxi service in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, with plans to hit Austin later this year. GM’s Cruise is still mainly off the streets after an incident in October 2023 that left a pedestrian stuck under and dragged by one of its robotaxis, but the company has begun mapping again in Phoenix as part of a slow, deliberate reintroduction to public roads.

Then there’s Tesla. CEO Elon Musk has shaken up his company, laying off thousands and increasing investment into AI, in a stated goal to go “balls to the walls for autonomy” and deliver a robotaxi in August.

This article has been updated to include confirmation from Hyundai.

Leolabs visualization space domain awareness

LeoLabs lands new capital to help the US keep track of space junk and adversarial satellite launches

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Leolabs visualization space domain awareness

Image Credits: LeoLabs (opens in a new window)

The number of objects in space has risen dramatically over the past 30 years, and much of that is due to commercial companies unlocking new business cases and discovering cheaper ways to get to space.

But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been growing pains — like increased congestion in orbit. For commercial satellite operators, the biggest concern tends to be colliding with another object; for the U.S. Space Force, it’s making sure American defense and its allies knows where objects are in space, what they’re doing and who put them there.

For most of the time we’ve been putting stuff into space, monitoring and characterizing objects has been under the aegis of the Department of Defense. But a whole host of companies have emerged to realize the commercial potential of providing critical intelligence on objects in orbit.

One such company is LeoLabs. The nine-year-old startup has built out a 10-site radar network that spans both hemispheres to collect data on more than 20,000 objects in low Earth orbit, as well as a cluster of products from straightforward precision tracking to real-time alerts if your satellite is at risk of a collision.

The company started the year strong, banking a new contract from NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce that will help inform the agency’s important Traffic Coordination System for Space initiative. Building on that momentum, LeoLabs announced today that it closed a $29 million extension to its $65 million Series B that closed in the summer of 2021.

LeoLabs raised the new capital to fund growth in AI tech — which makes sense, as its insights are the bread-and-butter of the business. Defense customers integrate these insights into command operations, while commercial operators use this information to inform mission planning and spaceflight safety analysis.

“We’ve already applied AI models for detecting on-orbit maneuvers in real time, categorizing objects, characterizing ‘unknown’ objects, and analyzing patterns-of-life on recently launched objects,” founder and CEO Dan Ceperley told TechCrunch. “As the number of objects and activities in LEO continue to grow, it’s becoming more and more difficult for operators to keep up. The tools we’re developing will help the industry leverage automation and advanced analytics to keep pace with this rapid growth.”

He said that the new investment will also fuel development of new radar technologies that will be able to provide coverage of even smaller pieces of orbital debris, as well as track “non-cooperative” launch activities in very low Earth orbit. This last piece is of particular interest to the U.S. Space Force, because it refers to launches that aren’t coordinated with the U.S. or its allies — like China, which keeps its space activity notoriously close to the chest.

The round, which LeoLabs said was oversubscribed, was led by GP Bullhound, with participation from new investors 1941 and Dolby Family Ventures. It was also backed by existing investors, including Insight Partners, Velvet Sea Ventures, Space Capital, and the AngelList syndicate led by Dylan Taylor.

A screenshot of Signal's new usernames feature

Signal now lets you keep your phone number private with the launch of usernames

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A screenshot of Signal's new usernames feature

Image Credits: Signal

Signal is launching usernames, the company announced today. Up until now, you have had to give someone your phone number to chat with them on Signal. Now you can create a unique username that you can use instead. Usernames are currently launching in beta and will be rolling out to all users in the coming weeks. Signal still requires a phone number when registering for the app.

As end-to-end encrypted messaging apps go, Signal stands apart as one with the strongest security and privacy features. By allowing users to now keep their phone numbers private, Signal is closing one of the few loopholes that could allow hacker’s access to a victim’s messages — where hackers hijack the phone number at the phone carrier level used to register with Signal.

Usernames in Signal do not function like usernames on social media platforms, the company says. For example, Signal usernames are not logins or handles that you’ll be known by in the app. Instead, they’re just a quick way to connect with someone on the app without sharing your phone number.

If you create a username, your profile name will still display whatever you set it to, and won’t show your username. People you message on the app also can’t see or find your username unless you have shared it with them. If someone wants to talk to you on the app, they will need to know your exact username because Signal doesn’t provide a searchable directory of usernames like X and Instagram do. Or, you have the option to generate a QR code or link that directs people to your username.

Once you create a username, your phone number will no longer be visible in Signal to anyone running the latest version of the app if they don’t already have it saved in their contacts. When you message people either directly or in group chats, your phone number won’t show up, as users will only see your profile name and image. However, if you still want people to see your phone number when you message them, you can change the default setting in your “Phone Number” settings.

Image Credits: Signal

To create a username, go into your “Profile” settings. From there, choose a unique username that has two or more numbers at the end of it. You can change your username as often as you want, and you also have the choice to delete your username altogether if you don’t want one anymore. The company says it created usernames to be easily changeable so that you can choose to make a specific username for things like a conference or a group trip, and then change it once it’s over.

To start chatting with someone via their username, you need to open the “New Chat” screen in the app and type in their username.

Signal is also introducing a new privacy setting that will let you control who can find you on the app with your phone number. Up until now, anyone who had your phone number, whether they got it on social media or a business card, has been able to find you on Signal. Now you can restrict this by going into your settings and navigating to the “Who can find me by my number” setting and selecting “Nobody.”

If you select the “Everybody” option, this means that anyone who has your phone number can type it into Signal and send you a message request, which you can of course reject or block.

Polestar lands $1B loan to keep EV plans on track

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Polestar 2 model year 2024

Image Credits: Polestar

Polestar secured a $950 million loan from a dozen banks, critical funds needed to keep its EV plans moving forward following Volvo’s decision to pull back its financial support of the electric automaker.

Polestar said Wednesday the funds were needed to finance the next stage of its development and covers a large majority of its estimated financing needs. The financing was provided by 12 international banks, including BNP Paribas, Natixis, Standard Chartered, BBVA, HSBC and SPDB, in the form of a three-year loan facility. The company had about $770 million in cash at the end of 2023, according to regulatory filings.

The funding provides a critical stopgap for the publicly traded Swedish EV company owned by China’s Geely Holdings. However, it doesn’t solve all of its financial woes. Even with this new injection of capital, the company said Wednesday it will continue to cut costs and look for efficiency, including layoffs. Polestar, which has cut 10% of jobs since mid-2023, said it plans to make another 15% cut this year. The company previously disclosed that 15% job cut, which will affect about 450 people.

The financing comes amid softening demand for EVs, particularly vehicles in the luxury and premium segments as consumers seek better deals. At the company’s inaugural Polestar Day in Los Angeles last November, the automaker said next-generation vehicles and tech would provide the spark needed to boost sales. But bringing new vehicles to market is a costly exercise with no guarantee of a sales win.

Polestar currently produces the Polestar 2, Polestar 3, which recently started production in China, and the Polestar 4. The company said it has successfully completed test production runs for the Polestar 3 at its factory in South Carolina. Prototype production of Polestar 5, a progressive performance GT, will also accelerate in 2024, the company said.

The $950 million loan follows Volvo Cars’ decision last month to reduce its 48% holding in Polestar and let parent company Geely take over financial responsibility. Under the new structure, Geely Sweden Holdings will become the second largest shareholder and Volvo Cars will retain an 18% stake.

“As a strategic partner and direct shareholder in Polestar, Geely will continue to provide full operational and financial support to the iconic performance car brand going forward,” Daniel Li, Geely Holding Group CEO and Polestar board member said in a statement. “We will retain our shares in Polestar and intend to participate in future financing activities when required. Polestar will have full access to technologies and engineering expertise from Geely Holding to realize its global growth targets.”

Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath said efforts to cut costs and improve margins are paying off as the company works toward a 2025 goal of achieving cash flow break-even, annual volume of over 155,000 and a gross margin in the high teens.

“This marks a new phase in Polestar’s business,” he said in a statement. “The efforts of recent years are paying off: We improved our cost basis, secured financing and are ramping up our product offensive. Both SUVs now sharpen the brand, target one of the fastest growing segments in the industry and position us for strong volume growth and profit margin progression from the second half of 2024.”

AgZen's RealCoverage wants to keep pesticides only where they are needed

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Image Credits: AgZen (opens in a new window)

A 2021 study found that if farmers didn’t use pesticides, they would lose 78% of fruit production, 54% of vegetable production, and 32% of cereal production. At the same time, the way pesticides are delivered is not ideal: The only way to guarantee enough pesticide distribution is to spray too much. That isn’t great for farmers’ wallets or the environment.

Along comes AgZen, a company born out of over a decade of MIT engineering research, with a new solution that uses AI to ensure that the plants get sprayed just enough, using real-time adjustments to optimize the use of pesticide. The company’s CEO, Vishnu Jayaprakash, shared with TechCrunch that RealCoverage can detect droplets as small as 150 microns and can offer real-time adjustments to spray parameters like pressure, rate, boom height, or speed. This allows for maximum application efficiency at speeds of up to 12 mph, the company claims.

The implications of this technology are vast. AgZen claims that its algorithms and optimizations can reduce chemical usage by up to 50%, significantly lowering input costs for farmers while maintaining crop health and yield. AgZen has been testing its product through more than three years of field trials on various crops and tells TechCrunch that last year it conducted 12 successful pilots and trials across the U.S. and Europe with some of the largest growers in the world.

The real winner in all of this may prove to be public health and the environment. With studies indicating widespread contamination of agricultural streams, wells, and aquifers due to pesticide runoff, and the global soil at high risk of pesticide pollution, agtech companies are scrambling for solutions. By reducing foliar pesticide usage by 30% to 50%, AgZen’s technology might help mitigate these impacts, aligning with the critical need for improved spray efficiency highlighted in recent reports.

The company also suggests that RealCoverage may prove to be a valuable tool for farmers trying to ward off regulators — the EPA has been rattling its saber over pesticide runoff for a while. By providing precise data on pesticide volume reaching the target in real time, it can improve pesticide tracking, reduce environmental impact, and offer insights for designing new formulations and optimizing farm operations globally.

AgZen is preparing to launch RealCoverage commercially later this year through a lease-to-own program, which helps put the system into financial range for farmers. The company suggests that by reducing the amount of chemicals used, the system pays for itself within a season.

Megaphone

Your cut-out-and-keep guide to Big Tech talking points in a new age of antitrust

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Megaphone

Image Credits: Tullio Saba (opens in a new window) / Flickr (opens in a new window) under a Public Domain (opens in a new window) license.

With tech giants facing new laws and enforcements aimed at cutting their empires down to size, a lobbying frenzy replete with wildly binary claims is underway.

As the likes of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft and TikTok face unprecedented (yes, actually!) scrutiny from lawmakers and law enforcers around the world, lobbyists are working overtime to put a self-serving spin on entrenched, profit-extracting machinery.

Their job? Apply high-gloss, pro-competition narratives to cloak accusations of naked monopoly. The goal? Seek to bend new rules, such as the EU’s Digital Markets Act, to fit existing operations and business models to avoid as much commercial damage as possible.

It’s all about fending off wrecking-ball enforcement — and new, targeted laws — which could force the world’s most valuable companies to dismantle the chokepoints they’ve built to make money, ingest data and capture attention.

But there’s an even greater nightmare for Big Tech: The breakup of established empires may be on the cards.

Platform PR ops — which you can trace through official blog posts, user-facing messaging, regulatory filings and more — seek to reframe Big Tech’s actions as beneficent and stain-free. As such, their contortions can be highly gymnastic. It’s fair to say commercial juggernauts are long practiced in the dark art of doublespeak, with accusations of unfair behavior dating back decades in some cases.

This may explain why some of the defensive claims put out in response to dialed-up regulatory attention are so familiar. But it’s possible to spot newer concoctions, too — such as talk of muscular new EU market contestability laws demanding “difficult trade-offs.” (Rough translation: “Our compliance will degrade the service in a way that’s intended to annoy you because we want you to complain about the law.”)

Amid all the noise, one thing looks clear: The regulatory risk is finally real.

As the world’s most valuable companies pay flacks to come up with semantic tactics to paint their market power as nothing-to-see-here, good ol’ business-as-usual, we present some plain English translations of commonly seen Big Tech talking points…

jargon-cereal
Image Credits: Bryce Durbin/TechCrunch (opens in a new window)

Our platform is essential for small businesses to reach consumers.
Gatekeeping is our line of business.

Our interests are aligned with thousands of small and medium-sized businesses.
We’re also in rent collection.

We have built a safe and trusted place for users.
Rent’s due!

We create a magical experience for our users.
Don’t touch our rents.

We believe in the free market.
We’ll do whatever we want until we’re made to stop.

We compete with a wide variety of services.
We crush as much competition as we can, as fast as we can.

We face intense competition.
Sometimes it takes us longer than we’d like to crush the competition.

We believe competition is good for our economy.
Baby, we ARE the economy!

We’re taking a compliance-first approach.
We’re looking out for No.1.

We take your privacy seriously.
We’re using your information.

We take the security of your information seriously.
We want exclusive access to your information.

We are committed to keeping people’s information private and secure.
We want exclusive access to everyone’s information — and, btw, if you use the web, we’re tracking you.

Privacy fundamentalists.
Literally anyone who cares about privacy; typically denotes a European.

We offer unprecedented choice.
You get no choice.

We’re offering a clear choice.
You definitely get no choice.

You can easily switch your default.
Good luck finding the setting!

Manage your consent choices.
We make it really hard/impossible for you to stop us tracking you.

There’s a lack of clear regulatory guidance.
We’ll do whatever we want until we’re made to stop.

We need more clarity about how to comply.
We’ll do whatever we want until we’re made to stop.

We’re complying with the law.
We’re not — but make us stop, punk.

The regulatory landscape is evolving.
We’re breaking the law.

We remain committed to complying with the law.
We broke the law.

It addresses the latest regulatory developments, guidance and judgments.
We’re breaking the law — but make us stop, punk.

New ways to manage your data.
We got caught breaking the law.

Subscription for no ads.
We found a new way to ignore the law.

Opt-out process.
We track you by default.

Help center.
Unhelpful by default.

The new rules involve difficult trade-offs.
Our compliance will degrade the service in a way that’s intended to annoy you because we want you to complain about the law.

We believe in a free, ad-supported internet.
We intend to keep tracking you, profiling you and selling your attention to anyone who pays us.

Personalized advertising.
Surveillance advertising, aka tracking.

Relevant ads.
Tracking.

Personalized products.
Tracking.

Relevant content.
Tracking.

Personalization.
Tracking.

Personal data that is collected about your interaction can be shared across linked services.
Tracking.

An inclusive internet where everyone can access online content and services for free.
Our business model requires privacy to be an unaffordable luxury because you’re the product.

Free services.
In this context just another way of saying we’re tracking you.

A way for people to consent to data processing for personalized advertising.
A mechanism for tracking so fiendishly simplistic to activate that a child already has.

The validity of our approach has been validated by numerous authorities.
We’re breaking the law in a new way so regulators haven’t caught up yet.

Information sharing.
Yep, that’s us, normalizing how we’re taking your private information and doing what we want with it again!

We do not sell your information.
We sell your attention.

Manage how your data is used to inform ads.
There’s no way to stop us abusing your privacy.

Ad preferences.
There’s no way to stop us abusing your privacy.

Privacy center.
Srsly, there’s no way to stop us abusing your privacy and we’re just trolling you now!

Why am I seeing this ad?
Because we tracked you.

Why are we doing this?
To keep tracking you for 🤑 

Publicly available information.
Stuff we stole.

Data moving through a circuit board with CPU in the center.

Hailo lands $120 million to keep battling Nvidia as most AI chip startups struggle

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Data moving through a circuit board with CPU in the center.

Image Credits: Ignatiev / Getty Images

The funding climate for AI chip startups, once as sunny as a mid-July day, is beginning to cloud over as Nvidia asserts its dominance.

According to a recent report, U.S. chip firms raised just $881 million from January 2023 to September 2023 — down from $1.79 billion in the first three quarters of 2022. AI chip company Mythic ran out of cash in 2022 and was nearly forced to halt operations, while Graphcore, a once-well-capitalized rival, now faces mounting losses.

But one startup appears to have found success in the ultra-competitive — and increasingly crowded — AI chip space.

Hailo, co-founded in 2017 by Orr Danon and Avi Baum, previously CTO for wireless connectivity at the microprocessor outfit Texas Instruments, designs specialized chips to run AI workloads on edge devices. Hailo’s chips execute AI tasks with lower memory usage and power consumption than a typical processor, making them a strong candidate for compact, offline and battery-powered devices such as cars, smart cameras and robotics.

“I co-founded Hailo with the mission to make high-performance AI available at scale outside the realm of data centers,” Danon told TechCrunch. “Our processors are used for tasks such as object detection, semantic segmentation and so on, as well as for AI-powered image and video enhancement. More recently, they’ve been used to run large language models (LLMs) on edge devices including personal computers, infotainment electronic control units and more.”

Many AI chip startups have yet to land one major contract, let alone dozens or hundreds. But Hailo has over 300 customers today, Danon claims, in industries such as automotive, security, retail, industrial automation, medical devices and defense.

In a bet on Hailo’s future prospects, a cohort of financial backers, including Israeli businessman Alfred Akirov, automotive importer Delek Motors and the VC platform OurCrowd invested $120 million in Hailo this week, an extension to the company’s Series C. Danon said that the new capital will “enable Hailo to leverage all opportunities in the pipeline” while “setting the stage for long-term growth.”

“We’re strategically positioned to bring AI to edge devices in ways that will significantly expand the reach and impact of this remarkable new technology,” Danon said.

Now, you might be wondering, does a startup like Hailo really stand a chance against chip giants like Nvidia, and to a lesser extent Arm, Intel and AMD? One expert, Christos Kozyrakis, Stanford professor of electrical engineering and computer science, thinks so — he believes accelerator chips like Hailo’s will become “absolutely necessary” as AI proliferates.

Image Credits: Hailo

“The energy efficiency gap between CPUs and accelerators is too large to ignore,” Kozyrakis told TechCrunch. “You use the accelerators for efficiency with key tasks (e.g. AI) and have a processor or two on the side for programmability.”

Kozyrakis does see longevity presenting a challenge to Hailo’s leadership — for example, if the AI model architectures its chips are designed to run efficiently fall out of vogue. Software support, too, could be an issue, Kozyrakis says, if a critical mass of developers aren’t willing to learn to use the tooling built around Hailo’s chips.

“Most of the challenges where it concerns custom chips are in the software ecosystem,” Kozyrakis said. “This is where Nvidia, for instance, has a huge advantage over other companies in AI, as they’ve been investing in software for their architectures for 15-plus years.”

But, with $340 million in the bank and a workforce numbering around 250, Danon’s feeling confident about Hailo’s path forward — at least in the short term. He sees the startup’s technology addressing many of the challenges companies encounter with cloud-based AI inference, particularly latency, cost and scalability.

“Traditional AI models rely on cloud-based infrastructure, often suffering from latency issues and other challenges,” Danon said. “They’re incapable of real-time insights and alerts, and their dependency on networks jeopardizes reliability and integration with the cloud, which poses data privacy concerns. Hailo is addressing these challenges by offering solutions that operate independently of the cloud, thus making them able to handle much higher amounts of AI processing.”

Curious for Danon’s perspective, I asked about generative AI and its heavy dependence on the cloud and remote data centers. Surely, Hailo sees the current top-down, cloud-centric model (e.g. OpenAI’s modus operandi) is an existential threat?

Danon said that, on the contrary, generative AI is driving new demand for Hailo’s hardware.

“In recent years, we’ve seen a surge in demand for edge AI applications in most industries ranging from airport security to food packaging,” he said. “The new surge in generative AI is further boosting this demand, as we’re seeing requests to process LLMs locally by customers not only in the compute and automotive industries, but also in industrial automation, security and others.”

How about that.

Hyundai is spending close to $1B to keep self-driving startup Motional alive

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Motional's Hyundai Ioniq 5 AV with Uber logo

Image Credits: Motional

Hyundai has agreed to spend nearly $1 billion on Motional, an investment that will give the automaker a majority stake while providing the self-driving startup with the necessary capital to keep operating.

The Korean automaker invested $475 million directly into Motional as part of a broader deal that includes buying out joint venture partner Aptiv. As part of the deal, Hyundai will spend another $448 million to buy 11% of Aptiv’s common equity interest in Motional, according to information revealed Thursday in Aptiv’s first-quarter earnings report.

Aptiv also shared that it expects to reduce its common equity interest in Motional from 50% as of March 31 to about 15%, leaving Hyundai with the remaining 85% control. Aptiv chairman and CEO Kevin Clark flagged in January that the company would reduce its ownership interest in Motional. The company said at the time that it would stop allocating capital to Motional due to the high cost of commercializing a robotaxi business and the long road ahead to profits.

On Thursday, Aptiv reduced its full-year net sales forecast for 2024 to be between $20.85 billion and $21.45 billion, down from between $21.3 billion and $21.9 billion.

Motional confirmed the new funding round and increased stake from Hyundai but didn’t confirm Aptiv’s numbers. Hyundai, however, said the amounts listed in Aptiv’s earnings report were accurate.

hyundai motional money
Image Credits: Aptiv 

Motional started as Boston-based autonomous vehicle startup nuTonomy in 2013, before being acquired by Delphi for $450 million. Delphi would later split its business with the Aptiv unit absorbing nuTonomy. The entity became Motional under a $4 billion Hyundai-Aptiv joint venture in 2019. While it’s clear from Aptiv’s earnings report that the company is trying to manage risks and optimize finances amid a less positive outlook, the company’s retreat, and Hyundai’s step forward, raises questions about Motional’s future.

In March, TechCrunch reported that Motional secured a bridge loan for an undisclosed amount as a lifeline while the AV startup secured its next round of longer-term funding. While it’s likely that this funding round from Hyundai fits that bill, Motional has not responded to TechCrunch’s request for more information about whether it will need to acquire more investors in the future.

Motional has been testing its autonomous vehicles with a safety driver behind the wheel in Boston, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Singapore. The company’s go-to-market strategy involves partnering with existing ride-hail platforms like Uber, Lyft and Via to give customers rides. Motional has stated its goal of launching a robotaxi service using driverless Hyundai Ioniq 5 vehicles in 2024.

Motional and Hyundai announced plans in November 2023 to co-develop production-ready versions of the all-electric Ioniq 5 robotaxi at the automaker’s new innovation center in Singapore, the Hyundai Motor Group Innovation Center Singapore (HMGICS). During CES 2024, Motional also announced plans to work with Kia on a next-generation vehicle that will enter commercial operations later this decade, with initial development stages beginning this year.

Motional’s financial shifts come as the robotaxi industry continues to face uncertainty. The startup has been inching slowly toward commercialization, launching pilots in at least five cities. Crucially, Motional has not yet begun charging for rides or deliveries yet. Meanwhile, among the competition, Waymo continues to expand its fully driverless, paid robotaxi service in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, with plans to hit Austin later this year. GM’s Cruise is still mainly off the streets after an incident in October 2023 that left a pedestrian stuck under and dragged by one of its robotaxis, but the company has begun mapping again in Phoenix as part of a slow, deliberate reintroduction to public roads.

Then there’s Tesla. CEO Elon Musk has shaken up his company, laying off thousands and increasing investment into AI, in a stated goal to go “balls to the walls for autonomy” and deliver a robotaxi in August.

This article has been updated to include confirmation from Hyundai.

Agora

Agora raises $34M Series B to keep building the Carta for real estate

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Agora

Image Credits: Agora co-founders / Agora

Since he was very young, Bar Mor knew that he would inevitably do something with real estate. His family was involved in all types of real estate projects, from ground-up construction to managing residential, commercial and retail properties.

But unlike his parents, Mor also had a passion for technology. His interest in tech was reinforced when he became a commander in Unit 8200, the elite cyber intelligence division of the Israeli Defense Forces known for minting tech entrepreneurs.  

After leaving the army, he decided to combine his two passions: Mor noticed that many real estate investors do not have a dedicated system for keeping track of various back-office processes such as managing cash collected from rent, calculating and distributing proceeds to their LPs and many other administrative functions.

“We’ve seen companies struggling with managing all of these things using a lot of spreadsheets, emails and [other] disjointed systems that don’t interact with each other,” Mor said.

That realization led him, together with Unit 8200 friends Lior Dolinski and Noam Kahan, to found Agora, a software company that manages data, automates reporting, streamlines fundraising processes and provides bookkeeping and tax services for real estate investment firms of various sizes. 

Mor said that when he was initially fundraising, he told investors he was building Carta for real estate. It’s easy to see the comparison: Carta manages cap tables for startups and VCs, along with other administrative functions. Since real estate investing is similarly data-intensive, investors need tools that automate manual work and calculate yields. 

Agora has tripled its revenue every year since it launched five years ago. Thanks to its strong growth, the company announced on Thursday that it has raised a $34 million Series B from Israel-based growth fund Qumra Capital, along with returning investors Insight Partners and Aleph. The funding brought Agora’s total funding to $63 million.

Mor said raising this latest round wasn’t difficult for the company. 

Although some real estate investors have struggled amid the rising interest rate environment, Agora continued to grow and maintain a high client retention rate, Mor said. “It shows that we are actually solving something that is not a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have.”

Agora currently operates predominantly in North America, Europe and Israel, but it plans to start serving customers in other markets, including Central America, South America and Australia.

Mor’s family experience with real estate continues to help him build the company. 

“My personal background gave me [a way] to understand how real estate people think, what they care about, and how they negotiate,” he said. 

This knowledge informed various parts of Agora’s business, including how account managers interact with customers. Every customer has the cell phone number of their account manager.  

“Real estate guy, he has his broker, he has his lawyer, he has his bank relationship. He wants everything like this,” Mor said, putting his hand next to his ear as if holding a phone. “The idea is we are your technology partner. ‘You need something with your tech? Call Agora.’”