Autonomous car know-how startup Motional has secured a bridge mortgage that gives a brief monetary reprieve as the corporate searches for a longer-term supply of funding, TechCrunch has discovered.
Motional CEO Karl Iagnemma instructed employees in a companywide e-mail considered by TechCrunch that the corporate’s board of administrators authorized the bridge financing.
“As I’ve previously mentioned, Motional’s shareholders have been in negotiations to finalize our next round of funding. As part of those negotiations, our shareholders considered various short term-funding alternatives, including a bridge financing, if discussions were to extend longer than anticipated,” Iagnemma wrote within the e-mail. He later added that the bridge financing “will allow our shareholders additional time to discuss longer term funding options and solidify alignment on Motional’s strategic direction.”
The e-mail didn’t define the phrases or the quantity of the bridge mortgage or how a lot capital runway it’d present. The corporate didn’t reply to an e-mail looking for remark. TechCrunch will replace the article if the corporate feedback.
Automotive provider Aptiv — the opposite half of the $4 billion three way partnership with Hyundai that created Motional — mentioned in January that it will now not allocate capital towards the endeavor. That left Motional, which plans to launch a industrial robotaxi service in 2024, with sufficient capital runway to final by way of the tip of Q1 2024, in keeping with sources aware of inner conferences on the time.
After a wave of consolidation and shutdowns within the nascent autonomous car trade, Motional is without doubt one of the few corporations left that’s nonetheless pursuing a industrial robotaxi service. The corporate operates an autonomous car taxi service in Las Vegas (nonetheless with human security operators behind the wheel) on Uber, Lyft and Through platforms. It additionally has an autonomous supply pilot with Uber Eats in Santa Monica, California.
With Aptiv pulling out of future funding, Hyundai is left as the only real backer. Motional should both discover exterior buyers, with Hyundai’s blessing, or get the automaker to totally fund the hassle.
Motional has taken measures to scale back prices because it seeks extra funding. Final month, the corporate minimize about 5% of its workforce, or fewer than 70 individuals. The layoffs principally affected administrative roles and a few workers working in Boston, one among a number of cities the place it exams autonomous autos. The autonomous car firm final had layoffs in December 2022, when it minimize about 10% of its workforce. That earlier layoff principally affected the corporate’s operations in Pittsburgh, the place it exams AVs.
