Autonomous delivery startup Nuro has struck a deal with safety-focused software company Foretellix to help with virtual testing of its automated driving system in an effort to reduce R&D costs while pushing the technology forward.
The partnership, which the companies are set to announce later on Thursday, comes in the wake of a tumultuous stretch for Nuro. The startup, once a hotshot in the AV industry that raised more than $2 billion from high-profile investors such as Baillie Gifford, Fidelity Management & Research Company and Google, has reduced its workforce twice in the last 18 months, including a transformation in May 2023 which saw Nuro withdraw from planned commercial operations.
Nuro is also partnering with Foretellix at a time when the broader AV industry is in flux, with GM’s self-driving subsidiary Cruise declining its workforce and startup a number of leadersTuSimple exit from the US market and Argo AI is shutting down in the fall of 2022.
“We’re always looking to operate as cost-effectively as possible,” Dave Ferguson, one of Nuro’s co-founders, told TechCrunch via email. “Throughout the company we have tried to be diligent stewards of our capital and this is another example of that. But this is during normal operation and not indicative of any change in plans.”
Founded in 2018, Foretellix is partially backed by Toyota and Nvidia and recently raised a $43 million round in December. It has already entered into similar agreements with the Volvo Group and Torc Robotics for its verification and validation software.
Many companies developing automated vehicles have their own simulation software. Foretellix specializes in creating millions of scenarios for autonomous software testing, reducing the burden on internal teams.
“The product itself is a huge productivity boost, because if you have to develop all these scenarios one by one, it takes a huge amount of time,” Foretellix CEO and co-founder Ziv Binyamini told TechCrunch.
Foretellix’s software is able to “auto-analyze” drive logs from Nuro test vehicles and re-run these drives in simulation multiple times. This allows Nuro’s automated system to deal with many different versions of a drive without the hassle – and more importantly, time – required to run all those variations in the real world.
Foretellix declined to disclose financials surrounding the deal, but Binyamini said his company has been talking with Nuro about the partnership for about a year and that they are already working together.
This story has been updated to include a response from Nuro co-founder Dave Ferguson.
