We may still be many years away from large-scale deployment, let alone adoption, of fully autonomous vehicles on our streets, but in the meantime, self-driving vehicle companies that focus on closed-campus environments continue to raise funds. and advancing in the construction of autonomous vehicles. on a smaller scale. Ultimately, a startup called Venti Technologies announces that it has raised $28.8 million, a Series A that it plans to use to continue developing its software, partner with third parties for hardware (i.e. vehicles), and secure more deals.
Its target customer comes from the wide range of supply chain businesses that operate in warehouses, ports, and other shipping and logistics environments where vehicles, currently driven by humans, are critical to operations. Venti’s bet is that even with the high prices associated with autonomous vehicles, industrial customers will pay because it will pay off in the long run.
“If you have a large logistics facility where you operate vehicles, the biggest cost is human capital: the drivers,” Heidi Wyle, Venti’s founder and CEO, said in an interview. “Our customers tell us that they expect to save more than 50% of their operating costs with autonomous vehicles. I think they will have great savings.”
LG Technology Ventures, the venture capital arm of the LG Group, is leading this round, with participation from Safar Partners, UOB Venture Management and previous investors Alpha JWC and LDV Partners. Venti last raised $8 million, in the summer of 2021. The valuation is not disclosed.
Venti enters the industrial market after burning his fingers a bit due to his initial ambitions in the consumer market, where he worked in jeeps and a robotic taxi strategy, among other things, but found that the complexity of the scenarios was ultimately insurmountable.
“WWhat I have seen is that the “robo-taxi” is an extremely difficult problem to solve,” he said. “All the chaos in the world is sitting on those city streets. Industrial environments are completely different. It’s not a sexy space, but the global supply chain is huge and it got hit by Covid. They are still pulling out of it and wwe allow them to work better [now]And if something else like Covid appears ”.
LG, an industrial giant in its own right both as a core business and as a supplier of industrial businesses, is not currently a strategic partner, but Wyle said this is the long-term hope.
“Venti is solving real-world problems for large customers in large markets with technology that has proven to be secure, mature, and capable of driverless deployment in the near term,” Anshul Agarwal, MD of LG Technology Ventures, said in a statement. “We are impressed not only by the technology, which is more comprehensive and rapidly capable of delivering value to end customers, but also by the world-class team.”
