Autonomous vehicle technology company May Mobility gets funding of around the US $111 million from two insurance companies. They are US auto insurer State Farm and Japanese insurance company Tokio Marine. The autonomous technology company is located in Ann Arbor, based in Michigan.
With the funding, the company can continue to work on self-driving people-movers with Toyota Motor Corp. May said that by next year it plans to take human drivers out of the vehicles, and also have commercial operations. State Farm, one of the largest US auto insurers, invested through its State Farm Ventures arm, which puts money into startups working on technology that could improve vehicle safety.
Insurance industry support for autonomous vehicle technology could be crucial as self-driving vehicle companies work to convince regulators that robot vehicles can be safer than human-driven ones. May said the latest funding round was led by Japanese investment firm Sparx Asset Management Co’s Mirai Creation Fund II.
May’s fundraising comes at a challenging time for some autonomous and electric vehicle startups as investors have backed away from riskier ventures. Autonomous vehicle company Argo AI said last week it would cut 150 of its more than 2,000 employees worldwide.
The funding round
May originally announced an initial closing of an $83 million Series C in January, which was led by Mirai Creation Fund II and included Tokio Marine, Toyota Tsusho, Bridgestone Americas, as well as returning investors like Toyota Ventures and LG Technology Ventures. New investors to the round include SoftBank, State Farm Ventures, Next Century Ventures, SAIC, Wanxiang, Karma, and 10x Group. Together, they bring May’s total funding to $194 million.
The company currently operates low-speed AVs designed to augment public transportation in five cities — Arlington, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Fishers, and Hiroshima, Japan. In Ann Arbor, May’s hometown, the startup has been testing and demonstrating Toyota’s Sienna Autono-MaaS (S-AM) vehicles, which have been modified to serve as a vehicle platform compatible with third-party autonomous driving kits and sensors. May has 20 S-AMs in its fleet, most of which are in Ann Arbor. Alongside its funding announcement, May says it is aiming for other deployments of S-AM vehicles in late 2022. May’s first public deployment is set to launch this fall in a new U.S.-based market that May has not yet formally announced, according to the company. To advance its technology and scale its commercial efforts, the company intends to use the funding to triple its corporate headcount, particularly in engineering. May will also use the fresh capital to increase the number of vehicle deployments in the U.S. and Japan according to Tech Crunch.
