Investments · Autonomous driving
Toyota, Denso and SoftBank Vision Fund invest $1 billion in Uber's self-driving unit
- Investor
- Toyota Motor, Denso and SoftBank Vision Fund (Toyota City, Aichi)
- In
- Uber Advanced Technologies Group, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Value
- $1B ($400M Toyota, $267M Denso, $333M SVF)
- Status
- Announced on April 18, 2019; completed on July 2, 2019.
- Date
- 2019-04-18
Toyota, Denso and SoftBank Vision Fund invested a combined $1 billion in Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, the Pittsburgh-based self-driving unit, which became a separate company. Toyota put in $400 million, Denso $267 million and the Vision Fund $333 million, valuing the unit at $7.25 billion after the investment. Toyota also committed up to $300 million over three years toward development costs.
Why it matters
The investment tied two Japanese car-industry companies more closely to a US ride-hailing platform for self-driving services. It built on Toyota's $500 million investment in Uber in 2018.
Joint development
Toyota, Denso and Uber ATG agreed to work together on the hardware for next-generation self-driving vehicles and to prepare it for mass production. The companies had already planned pilot ride-hailing services in 2021 using self-driving Toyota Sienna minivans on Uber's network, with Toyota's Guardian safety technology.
A separate company
The investment created a new company for the self-driving unit, whose teams work on vehicle safety, self-driving software and mapping. The deal was expected to close in the third quarter of 2019 and was completed on July 2, 2019.
Sources
Kakehashi M&A News home
