MAKING MOBILITY MOVES

We're halfway through 2019, which means autonomous vehicles are everywhere, gas guzzlers are a thing of the past, and bullet trains are rocketing people from coast to coast in a matter of minutes. Ok... maybe we aren't quite there yet. In fact, we think the future of autonomous vehicles is off highway, as opined by our own Jeff Peters recently in TechCrunch. If you're hungry for more Autotech opinions, check out the first in a series of videos we'll be releasing to help you get to know our team and how we make our investments.

We recently announced our backing of SafeAI, the startup retrofitting heavy construction and mining vehicles with autonomous capabilities. SafeAI is quickly expanding its engineering team, so please check out their career page.

But, it's not all autonomous vehicles at Autotech. In reality, some of the most exciting innovation happening in our space has nothing to do with whether cars have drivers or not, as evidenced by many of our other investments in the year so far.

Swvl, for instance, is bringing technology to emerging markets by connecting commuters to private transit bus operators, making women feel safer on their way to work and empowering bus owners to grow their businesses. The company offers an app enabling riders heading in the same direction to find and share bus trips on fixed and dynamic routes for a flat fare with no surge pricing. 

We're also following the overall rise in mobility marketplaces with investments like Fixico, which offers an innovative and fully digital way to handle car damage repairs, enabling fleet owners and insurers to quickly obtain, compare, and select the best offer for body work repair. 

Is there a team or startup you respect highly – maybe even so much that you would invest in them yourself? Are you working on the next big thing? We're actively investing, so send us a note!

PORTFOLIO MOVES

• SpotHero has launched a new service that enables shared cars and corporate fleets to gain access to designated parking areas within SpotHero’s large network of 6,500 garages across 300 cities.

• Outdoorsy partnered with Mercedes-Benz and Daimler Financial Services to launch a Vehicle Purchase Program, an internet sales and distribution model for campervans and RVs, which is a first in the recreational vehicle space.
   
• Metawave has successfully demonstrated the world’s first automated 77 GHz electronically-steerable antenna calibration system to achieve dependable and repeatable beamsteering, achieving an important step toward full autonomy using radar technology.
   
• Volta Charging obtained a $44 million credit facility from Energy Impact Partners to accelerate the deployment of its free-to-use charging network.
   
• Xnor.ai launched AI2GO to help technical teams build fully functioning and customized edge AI systems with only a few clicks.

WHERE TO FIND US

• November 19th at The Marketplace Conference in Berlin