Optimus Ride chases $5.25m

Optimus Ride, a spinout of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that is working on driverless vehicle technology, has attracted $5.25m in a seed round, TechCrunch reported yesterday.

The round was co-led by VC firms NextView Ventures and FirstMark Capital and also included graphics chip maker Nvidia as a strategic investor. Joi Ito, director at MIT Media Lab, Greycroft Partners, Morado Venture Partners, Haystack and Uj Ventures also participated.

Optimus Ride remains largely in stealth mode and has not revealed details about its technology, though it is expected to reveal more in the coming months.

The spinout conducted first tests of its platform at Perkins School for the Blind last month, suggesting it may be taking a slightly different approach to driverless technology than competitors.

Sertac Karaman, co-founder, president and chief scientist, said: “We have been working on new transportation systems that are based on new self-driving vehicle technologies, and we have been working on this for a few months already.

“We have people on the team who have been working on autonomous vehicles for almost a decade. We have come together to build self-driving vehicles, or systems that are based on level 4 autonomy, and to carry that to the next transportation system.”