Oxbotica Secures $47M Funding for Industrial Autonomous Vehicle Software

As the development of secure, dependable, and affordable self-driving cars progresses, a leading innovator in autonomous vehicle software has secured significant investment to concentrate on a more readily achievable goal: delivering technology to industrial businesses for use in off-road environments.

Oxbotica, the Oxford, England-based company developing what it terms “universal autonomy” – adaptable technology designed to power the navigation, perception, user interfaces, fleet management, and other essential functions for self-driving vehicles across diverse settings, irrespective of the hardware utilized – has obtained $47 million in a Series B funding round from a diverse group of strategic and financial investors.

The investment round was spearheaded by bp ventures, the investment division of energy corporation bp, and also included participation from BGF, safety equipment manufacturer Halma, pension fund HostPlus, IP Group, Tencent, Venture Science, and funds managed by Doxa Partners.

Oxbotica intends to utilize these funds to support a series of upcoming implementations – with several scheduled to launch this year, according to the company’s CEO – for clients in sectors such as mining, port logistics, and others, with its primary investor bp signifying the scale of its clientele and the nature of its projects.

According to CEO Ozgur Tohumcu in an interview, the central inquiry is, “Where is autonomous operation required now? In locations like mines or ports, vehicles are already in operation,” he explained. “We are witnessing a substantial shift within the industrial sector.”

This funding and shift in focus toward industry represent a noteworthy development for Oxbotica. The company was founded around 2014 as a spin-off from Oxford University, established by academics Paul Newman and Ingmar Posner – Newman continues with the company as its CTO, while Posner remains an AI professor at Oxford.

Oxbotica has been involved in numerous prominent projects, including providing sensor technology for NASA’s Mars Rover in its early stages.

The company has since refined its operations to concentrate on two core platforms: Selenium and Caesium, which respectively encompass navigation, mapping, perception, machine learning, data export, and related technologies; and fleet management.

Newman emphasizes that Oxbotica’s systems distinguish themselves through their lightweight design and ease of implementation.

“Our strength lies in edge computing,” he stated. “Our radar-based maps require only 10 megabytes to cover a kilometer, compared to hundreds of megabytes… Our objective is to create a horizontal software platform akin to Microsoft’s.” However, this may underestimate the efficiency of its development; Oxbotica has also devised methods for efficiently managing the substantial data volumes associated with autonomous systems and is collaborating with companies like Cisco to deploy these solutions.

In recent years, Oxbotica has been closely associated with several significant on-road self-driving initiatives in the U.K. However, as is typical with autonomous vehicle projects, not all endeavors have progressed as anticipated.

A self-driving trial initiated with London-based car service Addison Lee in 2018 initially projected the deployment of vehicles by 2021. This project was ultimately discontinued when Addison Lee was sold by Carlyle last year and the company ceased pursuing ambitious, high-cost ventures. Another project, the publicly funded Project Endeavour aimed at developing autonomous car systems across towns in England, appears to remain ongoing.

Newman stated that the move toward industrial clients is occurring in conjunction with these more ambitious, large-scale applications. “Industrial autonomy for off-road refineries, ports, and airports is a stepping stone to on-road autonomy,” he said, with the primary focus remaining on providing software compatible with various hardware configurations. “We’ve consistently envisioned ‘no atoms, just software,’” he added. “There’s nothing inherently unique about roads. Our goal is to be hardware-agnostic, ensuring compatibility with any hardware platform.”

While Oxbotica has long claimed an interest in hardware- and application-agnostic autonomy, it is now being joined by others who initially pursued a different path but have since adopted the Oxbotica strategy. This includes FiveAI, another U.K.-based autonomous startup that originally aimed to build its own fleet of self-driving vehicles but last year shifted to offering its software technology on a B2B basis to other hardware manufacturers.

To date, Oxbotica has raised approximately $80 million and, while not disclosing its valuation, remains confident that the coming year – with planned deployments and new partnerships – will demonstrate its success in the current market.

“bp ventures is pleased to invest in Oxbotica – we believe its software could accelerate the market for autonomous vehicles,” commented Erin Hallock, bp ventures managing partner, in a statement. “Accelerating the global revolution in mobility is central to bp’s strategy to become an integrated energy company focused on delivering solutions for customers.”