Toyota, DENSO and SoftBank Vision Fund to Invest $1 Billion in Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group

Uber to get a $1 billion investment from major companies. Source: shutterstock.com

Toyota, DENSO and the SoftBank Vision Fund (SVF) announced that they will invest $1 billion in Uber Technologies Inc.’s Advanced Technologies Group (Uber ATG). The investment, in a newly formed ATG corporate entity, aims to accelerate the development and commercialization of automated ridesharing services.

Under the terms, Toyota and DENSO will together invest $667 million and SVF will invest $333 million, valuing the new Uber ATG entity at $7.25 billion on a post-money basis.

Toyota invested $500 million in Uber in August 2018, when the two companies announced their intention to bring pilot-scale deployments of automated Toyota Sienna-based ridesharing vehicles to the Uber ridesharing network in 2021,?leveraging the strengths of?Uber ATG’s self-driving technology alongside the Toyota Guardian advanced safety support system.

Today’s further investment and expanded partnership builds upon the progress made to date, deepening the companies’ collaboration in designing and developing next-generation autonomous?vehicle hardware. It will also prepare the companies and industry for mass production and commercialization of automated ridesharing?vehicles and?services. Toyota will also contribute up to an additional $300 million over the next three years to help cover the costs related to these activities.

The transaction is expected to close in Q3 of calendar year 2019.

SEE ALSO:?10 most active VCs investing in Fintech