Some of the leading players in the logistics industry have been working with self-driving startup TuSimple over the past year on pilot projects across the Southwest. Investors have noticed.
Buoyed by relationships with UPS Inc. and the U.S. Postal Service, TuSimple said last week it had raised an additional $120 million as part of an extended Series D funding round.
The funding gives the company a fresh wave of financial resources to expand its fleet, plan new routes and co-develop a commercial truck with automakers and Tier 1 suppliers, the company said. TuSimple, founded in 2015, has raised $298 million overall and carries a $1 billion valuation.
The company has 35 trucks in its U.S. fleet, which is based at an operational hub in Tucson, Ariz. Company officials plan to increase that number to more than 50 by year end.
The latest funding round was led by Sina, the Chinese tech company behind the Weibo social-media platform. Participants include CDH Investments, Lavender Hill Capital and auto supplier Mando Corp.
The venture arm of UPS has also invested in TuSimple, and the company's trucks carry goods for UPS between Phoenix and Tucson while conducting self-driving tests with a human safety driver behind the wheel.
TuSimple has emerged as one of the early self-driving front-runners in the big-rig realm. Others include Waymo, which restarted truck testing in the Phoenix area this year, and startups such as Starsky Robotics and Ike.
All are chasing a slice of a trucking industry that's worth more than $800 billion to the U.S. economy each year.
TuSimple has been building out its business plans and operations. In addition to its work with UPS, the company conducted a pilot project with the U.S. Postal Service this year, hauling goods on interstate routes between Dallas and Phoenix. That route contains Interstate 10, a key corridor that industry and government officials have eyed as a likely place for an initial wave of autonomous freight haulers. Legislators in Florida, Louisiana, Texas and other states crossed by the interstate have pushed laws that would welcome such AV activity and ensure vehicles can cross from state to state without regulatory complications.
