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The San Francisco-based startup had raised just over $20 million since it was founded in 2015. Its last fundraise, a $16.5 million led by , took place in March 2018. Previous investors include , , and 9Point Ventures.

At the time of its Series A, Starsky announced that it had successfully driven its self-driving cargo truck for seven miles without a driver, according to .

鈥淣o safety driver behind the wheel, no engineer hiding on the bunk. We are the first company to make driverless trucks a reality,鈥� Starsky Robotics鈥� co-founder CEO said in a blog post then.

Fast-forward just over two years, and Seltz-Axmacher published a with a far more somber tone titled simply, 鈥淭he End of Starsky Robotics.鈥� He wrote:

鈥淚n 2015, I got obsessed with the idea of driverless trucks and started Starsky Robotics. In 2016, we became the first street-legal vehicle to be paid to do real work without a person behind the wheel. In 2018, we became the first street-legal truck to do a fully unmanned run, albeit on a closed road. In 2019, our truck became the first fully-unmanned truck to drive on a live highway.

And in 2020, we鈥檙e shutting down.鈥�

It鈥檚 unclear exactly how many employees will be affected by the shutdown, but a photo from February 2019 posted on Seltz-Axmacher鈥檚 blog shows 鈥渕uch of Starsky鈥檚 office team,鈥� with just under three dozen employees.

In a March 19聽, Seltz-Axmacher details how things fell apart at the company. By Nov. 12, 2019, Starsky鈥檚 $20 million Series B had fallen through, and most of the team was furloughed just three days later in what he described as 鈥減robably the worst day of my life.鈥� The founders then started working on selling the company, and 鈥渕aking sure the team didn鈥檛 go without shelter.鈥�

What happened?

With so many autonomous vehicle funding companies raising millions of dollars as of late, one has to wonder what happened in the case of Starsky Robotics.

Seltz-Axmacher blames timing in part for his company鈥檚 demise.

In his blog post, he said the space was too overwhelmed 鈥渨ith the unmet promise of AI to focus on a practical solution.鈥�

He continued:

鈥淎s those breakthroughs failed to appear, the downpour of investor interest became a drizzle. It also didn鈥檛 help that last year鈥檚 tech IPOs took a lot of energy out of the tech industry, and that trucking has been in a recession for 18 or so months.鈥�

Seltz-Axmacher also noted that investors didn鈥檛 seem to care for the company鈥檚 model of being the operator. He also claimed that Starsky鈥檚 鈥渉eavy investment into safety didn鈥檛 translate for investors.鈥�

Currently in the process of selling the assets of the company, Seltz-Axmacher said those assets include a number of patents essential to operating unmanned vehicles.

Meanwhile, 鈥檚 raised a staggering $2.25 billion earlier this month. That deal came just 10 months after rival self-driving car outfit at an approximate $18 billion post-money valuation. In February 2019, self-driving car startup raised $530 million in a led by .

Starsky鈥檚 competitors include (which raised last September) and Canada鈥檚 .

According to VentureBeat, in September 2017 Starsky Robotics completed the longest end-to-end autonomous trip on record. 鈥淎fter Hurricane Irma hit southwestern Florida, the company used one of its trucks to aid recovery efforts, hauling water 68 miles from one end of the state to the other without human intervention.鈥�

I鈥檓 no self-driving expert but that sounds pretty cool.

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The autonomous driving company, previously incubated as an “other bets” project under the umbrella of , says it has raised a staggering $2.25 billion in financing from investors including , the , and Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund . Other firms including , global automotive supplier , pre-owned vehicle listing service , and its corporate parent Alphabet also participated in Waymo’s round.

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“We’ve always approached our mission as a team sport, collaborating with our [original equipment manufacturer] and supplier partners, our operations partners and the communities we serve to build and deploy the world’s most experienced driver,” said , CEO of Waymo. 鈥淭oday, we’re expanding that team, adding financial investors and important strategic partners who bring decades of experience investing in and supporting successful technology companies building transformative products. With this injection of capital and business acumen, alongside Alphabet, we鈥檒l deepen our investment in our people, our technology and our operations, all in support of the deployment of the Waymo Driver around the world.鈥�

Waymo did not say, precisely, what it will do with its newfound cash, but it did share a number of development and business milestones. The company says its autonomous Waymo Driver platform has driven “more than 20 million miles on public roads across over 25 cities, and over 10 billion miles in simulation.” Waymo added that the company has already shipped its first L4 autonomous vehicles (which include electric vehicles and Class 8 trucks, according to the company) with the company’s latest hardware and beefed onboard sensors and compute hardware.

The company also provided updates about Waymo One, its on-demand autonomous car service which currently operates in Arizona. The service has already provided thousands of trips to locals “in a high-speed mixed usage market area larger than San Francisco.”

The deal comes 10 months after rival self-driving car outfit at an approximate $18 billion post-money valuation. The , , and automakers and participated in the raise.

TechCrunch in March 2019 that the company was seeking outside investment at a lofty valuation. In September, to $105 billion from $175 billion, based on its discounted cashflows.

No information about the company’s valuation or other terms of today’s financing have been disclosed at this time.

Illustration: .

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The round caught our eye not merely because we don鈥檛 see many Croatian companies on our radar, but also because it made us wonder how strong the aggregate EV venture capital scene has been. So, we dug into , and graphed the results.

Below is known deal and dollar volume for venture capital, private equity, and corporate venture capital (CVC) rounds raised by companies in 小蓝视频色情网页版鈥檚 EV category. Note that the category includes EV manufacturers, as well as companies developing battery technology and vehicle charging infrastructure.

So far in 2019, there have been 27 rounds raised by EV companies, accounting for approximately $2.1 billion in known funding.

Over the past year, we鈥檝e covered a number of rounds that related to electric vehicles in some form or another. For example, In April, we covered how , a developer of battery technology for use in electric vehicles, raised $170 million in a funding round led by German auto giant .

The California-based Sila Nano is working to improve lithium-ion batteries. Its chemistry allows for 鈥渓ighter, safer, higher energy density batteries for mass adoption of electric vehicles, smarter, longer-lasting portable electronics, and broader use of renewable power sources,鈥� according to the company.

Big car companies are also at work. Earlier this year, tied up with to the tune of $500 million. The pair are working on new batteries for Ford鈥檚 own electric car work. If that sounds similar to the Rimac round, it should.

And last September, Daimler also put money in San Francisco-based , a maker of battery-electric buses. It co-led in the company, which previously made 鈥渂uses for municipal, federal and commercial transit agencies,鈥� according to our friends at . In partnership with Daimler, TechCrunch that Proterra would 鈥渨ork with Daimler to possibly electrify the company鈥檚 Thomas Built Buses division, which manufactures a line of school buses.鈥�

Around the world it seems that the tide has crested on gas-powered cars; at least in terms of where research, and the future are looking. It will be years and years until the world sells more electric cars than those powered by old-school methods. But the deals needed to reach that tipping point are being sorted as we speak.

Indeed, we鈥檝e been on this topic essentially since 小蓝视频色情网页版 News came into publication, noting in 2017 that the venture classes are into the space. Even back in 2009, a period in which the global economy was dark, there was a good sum invested into the space. Since then China has for their development, for example.

There鈥檚 More To Autos Than Electricity

We鈥檇 be remiss to leave today without pointing out that the dollar amounts we discussed above are small compared to another category of automotive investment. Namely, self-driving tech.

There has been a staggering amount of money invested into autonomous car tech in recent years. Indeed, according to 小蓝视频色情网页版 data, the figure is north of $16 billion globally since the start of 2018. With that in mind, the Rimac round is impressive but comparably modest.

Indeed, so far this year we鈥檝e seen two billion dollar or larger rounds in the self-driving space. Uber鈥檚 picked up a billion, and , part of the empire raised $1.15 billion as well. That鈥檚 a lot of money.

But ironically, electric cars are a reality today. They exist, they are sold, they are driven. Self-driving tech remains, in contrast, partial and not yet as good as it needs to be. This makes for an interesting wager of sorts. But perhaps in the end we鈥檒l get a self-driving Rimac.

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The financing sets a post-money valuation of around $19 billion for the San Francisco-based company, 鈥渋nclusive of SoftBank Vision Fund’s previously announced investment commitment,鈥� Cruise said in a issued this morning.

The money came from a group consisting of institutional investors, including funds and accounts advised by and existing backers General Motors, and Honda, according to Cruise.

The latest financing brings the company鈥檚 total raised since inception to $7.25 billion, it said. In May 2018, SoftBank and GM led that gave the company a post-money valuation of $12.7 billion, according to its 小蓝视频色情网页版 profile.

鈥淒eveloping and deploying self-driving vehicles at massive scale is the engineering challenge of our generation,鈥� said Cruise CEO , in the press release. “Having deep resources to draw on as we pursue our mission is a critical competitive advantage.”

Besides its San Francisco headquarters, Cruise has offices in Seattle, Pasadena, and Phoenix. Its mission is to build 鈥渢he world鈥檚 most advanced self-driving, all electric vehicles.鈥� GM acquired the six-year-old company, formerly known as Cruise Automation, for in 2016. We reached out to the company for more details and will update the story when we have them.

In general, the self-driving space is heating up. Interestingly, SoftBank is funding more than one related initiative. Last month, we reported on how confirmed that its cash-burning self-driving unit received a $1 billion investment from auto giant , Japanese automotive components manufacturer ., and the SoftBank Vision Fund. As part of that, Uber said it would spin out the unit into a newly-formed advanced technologies 鈥渆ntity鈥� focused on 鈥渢he development and commercialization鈥� of automated ride-hailing services.

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Ridesharing, as a term, encapsulates a host of mobility-centered services that are designed to get you around your city. Collectively, ridesharing companies are among the most successful fundraising聽entities in the world, which makes them quite fun to watch as a group.

The cohort did not disappoint聽this week. Instead, it made a host of headlines that we might as well begin to curate into the Ridesharing Money Report, but the world very much doesn’t need yet another newsletter, so this bullet point list will have to suffice.

• Warren Buffett nearly invested in Uber. Buffett nearly invested $3 billion into Uber earlier this year, but it fell through. As , “[Buffett’s company]聽has a history of investing in troubled companies in exchange for favorable terms.” Yes it does. And thus, in a sense, Buffett indicated that Uber probably hit a local minimum. I wonder at what valuation聽Warren was considering making the deal.
• Bird might grow a horn. Earlier this week, news broke that Bird may raise $150 million more at a $1 billion valuation. That would make it the first scooter-unicorn. Yes, that was fast. No, the math doesn’t work. Maybe, investors will do well by letting FOMO, in this case, drive their wire transfers.
• Lime is fundraising.聽Speaking of scooters, Lime is . No word yet on terms, but coverage is still pretty thick, and recurring.
• SoftBank invests in Cruise. And finally, : “General Motors […] said that SoftBank Vision Fund will invest up to $2.25 billion into its Cruise self-driving program, with GM itself investing an additional $1.1 billion.” First, h0t damn. Second, it’s bad for Lyft, which Uber GM has invested in. But Cruise will now share an investor with Uber, which, in case you haven’t heard, competes with Lyft.

Someone is going to make short-range mobility work at a profit. I don’t know who, or what model or mode of transit, but someone will. And that’s good for us, the transit-takers. How many billions will get blended in the process, however, is a number that seems to go up every month.

From The聽:

SoftBank is making a bit bet on autonomous cars. The firm鈥檚 Vision Fund will invest $2.25 billion in General Motors鈥� self-driving car unit,聽. GM will also put $1.1 billion more into Cruise after the deal closes.

Meeker publishes annual report

Famed tech analyst Mary Meeker released a pared down but still massive annual Internet Trends聽聽showing, among other things, that the average adult spends nearly 6 hours a day on digital media.

Nexus targets $450M for new fund

, a VC firm that backs founders in India and the U.S., is seeking $450 million for a new fund, according to a securities filing.

Klaxoon secures $50M for meetings

Virtual meeting startup聽聽has raised $50 million in a Series B round led by Idinvest Partners.