Aussie autonomous vehicle developer Applied EV up $20m after Suzuki backing, partnership
A Melbourne autonomous vehicle start-up led by a former GM director has lifted its valuation to $190m after signing a deal with a Japanese car manufacturer to co-develop a vehicle.
An Australian vehicle software company has lifted its valuation by $20m after scoring a second investment from Suzuki as well as a commitment from the Japanese car manufacturer to co-develop a new autonomous vehicle.
Applied EV, led by former GM global expansion director Julian Broadbent, announced the new partnership on Thursday which included a memorandum of understanding from the multinational car maker to co-develop the sixth generation of its autonomous vehicle Blanc Robot.
The start-up, which was founded in 2015 and has developed 25 autonomous vehicles to date, is now worth $190m.
The investment, this time coming from Suzuki Global Ventures, arrives after the car manufacturer’s parent company led a $21m capital raise in Applied EV in September last year. At the time, the valuation was $170m.
Neither Suzuki nor Applied EV would share how much had been tipped into the start-up this round.
This is the second significant partnership the start-up has struck with a Japanese automotive company, an earlier deal was made with advanced materials firm Teijin in March, 2021.
About 80 per cent of Applied EV’s autonomous vehicles have been leased, most of which have gone to overseas logistics and mining companies. Only two vehicles have been leased locally, lent to the University of Sydney’s Australian Centre for Field Robotics in 2016.
Mr Broadbent has led Applied EV since it first began operating following a two decade career at US car manufacturer GM Motors.
“There I was the director of global advanced planning where I was tasked with looking at all the future trends and bringing new technologies to General Motors’ portfolio of vehicles,” he said.
Applied EV’s sixth vehicle will see the start-ups technology applied on top of Suzuki’s 4WD Jimny.
The partnership would allow the start-up to focus on further developing its software while providing access to the automotive supply chain and lower cost parts, Mr Broadbent said.
“We’ve built the vehicles to be fairly sophisticated machines in every aspect. And as we’ve seen the ability to move to more dependency on software, we’re seeing opportunities to take costs out of the platform by using readily available components that can be upgraded and modified to run on software,” he said.
Mr Broadbent said Applied EV would use some of the funding to focus on improving the efficiency and accuracy of autonomous vehicle technology.
“One of the things our engineers spend a lot of time doing is making the vehicle follow a path really accurately,” he said.
“The computers for the autonomous system are actually very needy and it can really affect the range of the vehicles so we spend a lot of time really making sure the vehicle does what the autonomous system is asking it to do.”
The start-up operates out of a research and development facility which it built in 2020 for $2m in the Melbourne suburb of Bayswater North.
More Coverage
Join the conversation
Optus to push Musk’s Starlink for business clients
Optus has signed a deal with Elon Musk to launch enterprise-size internet services in remote Australian towns, having boosted its arsenal in the race to adopt and sell satellite services.
Read more
Data centre operators to invest an extra $26bn in local assets
The nation’s top five data centres providers have hit back at claims they are exacerbating climate change, given the amount of energy and water they use to power and cool their computers.
Read more