Kodiak Robotics Inc. is an independent trucking company. announced Wednesday that it raised $125 million through an oversubscribed Series-B funding round. In a press release, the organization stated that this new cash injection brings its total fundraising up to $165million.
Mountain View, Calif. startup announced that it would use additional funds to double its workforce in the coming year, add 85 new employees and expand autonomous service capabilities across the country. It also plans to add 15 trucks to its fleet, which would bring it to at most 25 autonomous vehicles.
Kodiak currently transports freight daily between Dallas-Fort Worth (Texas) and Houston. The route is operated autonomously along the highway portion.
SIP Global Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Battery Ventures are the major investors in this new round of funding. Bridgestone Americas is a previous investor. BMW I Ventures is another.
Don Burnette (Founder and CEO of Kodiak Robotics) stated in a statement that “Our Series B drives our company into hyper-growth so that we can double our staff, our fleet, as well as continue to scale our business.” We developed the industry-leading technology, Kodiak Driver, in half the time and at a fraction of the cost of our competition. The importance of autonomous trucking is vital to America’s economic future. We have seen the challenges in the supply chain over the last 18 months. Series B will allow us to accelerate towards launching our commercial self-driving service with our partners over the next few years. It will address these critical challenges. The company stated that Kodiak has been hauling freight daily since 2019 for a wide range of industry partners, including some of the largest carriers and brands in the nation.
The announcement comes just a few weeks after Kodiak unveiled its fourth-generation autonomous vehicle in September. The company was expected to take delivery of 15 trucks this quarter. The company cites the modular and discrete-sensor approach as a critical feature of the new trucks. It simplifies and maintains the installation process and increases safety.
Burnette said that complicated and bulky systems that require an engineer hand-build and tune are unreliable and costly. He also spoke out in a release to announce the new Kodiak autonomous trucks. “Reliability and scalability are based on simplicity. We believe the best hardware modifications should barely be visible. Our fourth-generation platform is easy to scale, which allows for easy calibration, troubleshooting, and maintenance for our partners.
