Nuro, a developer of self-driving software for delivery and ride-hailing services, has secured $203 million in a Series E funding round backed by a group of new investors that includes Nvidia. The Silicon Valley startup announced that several investors added $97 million to this round. New participants include Icehouse Ventures, Kindred Ventures, Nvidia, and Pledge Ventures, while existing backer Baillie Gifford also contributed.
Uber, which recently announced a major investment in Nuro as part of a broader deal with electric car maker Lucid, also participated in this funding round. This investment from Nvidia builds upon a long-standing technical collaboration between the two companies. Nuro utilizes Nvidia GPUs for its large-scale data processing and model training, and its latest computing model is built on the Nvidia Drive AGX Thor platform.
The first portion of this Series E round, totaling $106 million, was announced back in April. That initial block saw participation from investment accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Tiger Global Management, Greylock Partners, and XN. To date, Nuro has raised a total of $2.3 billion. The Series E round gives the company a post-money valuation of $6 billion. This represents a 30% decrease from its $8.6 billion valuation in 2021 when it raised $600 million in a Series D round.
The last four years have brought significant change for Nuro and the wider autonomous vehicle industry. Like many startups in this sector, Nuro was forced to reexamine its business model as economic conditions tightened the flow of capital and led to a period of industry consolidation. The company underwent several rounds of layoffs in 2022 and 2023 before ultimately overhauling its strategy.
In 2024, Nuro pivoted away from its original plan to own and operate its own fleet of low-speed delivery robots. Instead, the company refocused its efforts on licensing its self-driving technology to automakers and mobility providers such as ride-hail and delivery companies. This new strategic direction appears to be gaining traction. A notable example is the July announcement from Uber, which plans to launch a robotaxi service using all-electric Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with Nuro’s self-driving technology.
As part of that broader deal, Uber invested $300 million in Lucid and agreed to purchase at least 20,000 of the EV maker’s Gravity SUVs over the next six years. Uber also committed a separate multi-hundred-million dollar investment to Nuro. According to a source familiar with the agreement, the investment in Nuro is larger than Uber’s investment in Lucid. A portion of Uber’s investment has been allocated to this Series E round, with the remainder to be distributed to Nuro as the company achieves specific milestones.
Nuro co-founder and president Dave Ferguson stated that with this new capital, the company is well-positioned for its next phase of growth. He added that Nuro, which employs approximately 700 people, will focus on delivering new commercial partnerships to achieve autonomy at a global scale.