After Spanish ride-hailing and multi-mobility company Cabify received €40 million loan from the European Investment Bank (EIB) for its fleet decarbonisation project just last week, Finnish autonomous driving tech company Sensible 4 has received €8 million loan from EIB. The funding will enable the platform to further develop its software which allows vehicles to operate under the most challenging weather conditions, including snow, heavy rain, fog and sandstorms.
The startup had earlier snagged $7 million in a Series A funding in 2020.
The EIB is making a slew of investments in the automotive industries and in the necessary charging infrastructure to improve the supply of emission-free urban mobility in the cities. Autonomous driving contributes to sustainable transport, reducing the number of traffic accidents and carbon dioxide and polluting emissions. It also provides a solution to the shortage of public transport and logistics drivers in Europe.
Talking about the funding, Harri Santamala, CEO of Sensible 4 said: “EIB sees the potential in our technology and is financing us in this early stage. The money has helped us finalise our baseline product and will now help us continue to pre-production with our non-exclusive partners, targeting mass-production.”
Self-driving vehicles also bring a solution to the acute driver shortage in Europe. Expanding public transport and increasing logistics would require even more drivers, and a self-driving fleet with remote operations is a great way to solve that problem, he added. As per the company, the first Sensible 4 product is ready for pre-production.
According to EIB vice president Thomas Östros, the automotive industry, including autonomous driving, is going through a radical transformation revolution with a high potential to reduce the carbon footprint from transport. “Our financing for Sensible 4, will help it to address the widely recognised problem of autonomous operations in bad weather conditions.”
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