“Our confidence in Outrider is based on its technical and commercial leadership in yard automation for fully autonomous vehicles to integrate fluidly into real-world customer operations,” NVenture’s head Mohamed Siddeek said. “The fundamental processing pipeline for autonomous vehicles can be applied to all kinds of autonomous and robotics systems — a key area of focus for Nvidia.”
The funding round also attracted B37 Ventures, Lineage Logistics’ venture capital division Lineage Ventures, Sumitomo Corp.’s venture arm Presidio Ventures and ROBO Global Ventures.
Henrik Christensen, a founding member of ROBO Global’s advisory board and Qualcomm chair of robotics at the University of California-San Diego, has joined Outrider as a board adviser.
Existing investors participating in this round include Koch Disruptive Technologies and New Enterprise Associates.
To date, Outrider has raised $191 million in financing. The company, founded in 2017 by Andrew Smith, a 2022 Automotive News all-star, includes industrial warehouse giant Prologis, Evolv Ventures and Kraft Heinz’s $100 million venture fund among its early investors.
This latest infusion of cash comes on the heels of the debut of Outrider’s TrailerConnect system, which robotically connects electric and pressurized brake lines to trailers and container chassis.
TrailerConnect uses robotic arms to locate and identify different connection patterns among trailers. It relies on software-based algorithms, hardware and sensors integrated into the robot arms, and is part of Outrider’s goal to provide self-driving electric trucks to automate freight yards.
Outrider said its customer fleets collectively represent more than 20 percent of all yard trucks operating in North America. Since 2019, the company has worked with its customers in joint product testing and pilot operations.
In 2021, Outrider teamed up with consumer packaged goods giant Georgia-Pacific to equip its Elmwood, Ill., distribution center with vehicles that completed 1,000 autonomous zero-emission trailer moves.
