Japanese autonomous driving start-up Turing has closed the first tranche of its Series A, raising a total of Y15.27bn ($98.6m) through a mix of equity and debt.
The company said it raised Y9.77bn in equity via the issuance of 1x non-participating preferred shares.
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The round was co-led by government-backed JIC Venture Growth Investments and independent venture capital firm Global Brain.
Additional investors included GMO Internet Group, auto parts supplier Denso, and several partners, venture capital firms and corporate venture arms of financial institutions.
Alongside the equity, Turing secured Y5.5bn in syndicated loans arranged by Mizuho Bank, taking the total from the first close to Y15.27bn.
Turing CEO Issei Yamamoto said: “Fully autonomous driving is one of humanity’s greatest challenges. This Series A first close marks a major step forward in our pursuit of that goal.”
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By GlobalDataTuring is establishing an end‑to‑end (E2E) autonomous driving AI.
The autonomous driving startup is focusing on building a large‑scale foundation model designed to interpret human social norms, background knowledge and contextual information.
The company is developing an end-to-end autonomous driving AI, centred on a large-scale foundation model intended to grasp human social norms, background knowledge and contextual cues.
Turing says incorporating these elements is key to its vision of delivering fully autonomous driving.
Funds from the raise will go towards expanding computing infrastructure, strengthening its organisational base for social deployment, and hiring.
The startup plans to scale its research and commercial execution in pursuit of autonomous driving systems developed in Japan.
Yamamoto added: “Building on the foundation of the technologies we have developed so far, we are now entering a phase where we will scale up our computing infrastructure, expand our datasets, and strengthen our organisational structure. This will allow us to accelerate both the technical and business sides of our operations.
“Turing has already assembled a world-class team of engineers, and we will continue to attract top talent. As CEO, I am responsible for leading this incredible team and remain committed to delivering Japanese-built autonomy to society.”
