Microsoft joins $2 billion fundraising round for GM's Cruise self-driving car company
Cruise now worth $30 billion
Microsoft has taken a stake in the General Motors-run Cruise self-driving car company during a $2 billion funding round that values the operation at $30 billion.
The parties have also entered a technical partnership that will see Cruise use Microsoft's Azure cloud computing platform for its operations.
“Our mission to bring safer, better and more affordable transportation to everyone isn’t just a tech race – it’s also a trust race,” Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said in a press release on the partnership. “Microsoft, as the gold standard in the trustworthy democratization of technology, will be a force multiplier for us as we commercialize our fleet of self-driving, all-electric, shared vehicles.”
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Honda, which had previously invested several billion dollars in Cruise, also increased its position during the funding round along with several unnamed institutional investors.
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Cruise recently began testing its autonomous cars on the streets of San Francisco without a backup driver in the driver's seat as it develops its technology with an eye on launching a driverless ride-hailing service using the Origin electric shuttle it unveiled last year.
A fixed timetable for a public roll-out of the service has not been announced, but Amman in December said that 2021 would be an "exciting year."
GM stock was up over 8% in early Tuesday trading following the news.