Pulse News Korea reports:
South Korea’s electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co. is stepping up its efforts to solidify its position in the automotive electronics industry through aggressive investment in smart car technology.
According to multiple sources in the industry on Wednesday, Samsung Group’s unit Samsung Venture Investment Corp. invested in nuTonomy Inc., a venture that develops self-driving car software based on robotics, together with Signal Ventures Ltd. and Fontinalis Partners LLC and others. Following the successful fundraising campaign, the venture has raked in about $3.6 million (4.3 billion won) worth of funds in total, according to the industry sources.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based nuTonomy is a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), headed by Karl Iagnemma who has led the Robotic Mobility Group at MIT. With the investment, nuTonomy will focus on developing software that could enable an autonomous car to drive even in busy city traffic conditions, which is yet to be achieved by Google Inc. with its self-driving car project that proved to be a success on a highway.
nuTonomy seems to be one of the few companies jointly with Google that is aiming to create an Operating System for autonomous vehicles.
Most of the OEMs are focused on building those capabilities in house and consider the OS a central piece of their value proposition. My only question here is: would they be able to attract the right talent to build something that is well beyond their core business?
Only time will tell…