Soft Bank and Others Invests into Uber’s self-driving unit new Funding Round

The new funding round for Uber’s self-driving unit, Advanced Technologies Group (ATG)has valued itself at $7.25 billion. The funding was raised from a consortium of investors which included SoftBank Group Corp and others.

The funding will bolster the company’s ambitions to strengthen its autonomous vehicle unit on the eve of its IPO. Coming to the investment, $333 million will be injected by Softbank from its $100 million vision pump, while $667 million will be pumped in by Denso Corp and Toyota Motors Corp.

Sources familiar with the matter said Toyota will invest an additional $300 million over the next three years in order to support the development of autonomous vehicles.

The investment news was reported by Reuters in March in ATG.

In its IPO fillings this month, the company warned that making autonomous vehicles is costly and time-consuming and may not be successful.  Uber also lagged certain competitors.

The new fundings will pave the way for Uber to shift a significant amount of creating autonomous vehicles onto outside investors. The new development has put AGT under its own legal entity but will be controlled by Uber.

The company intends to roll out a roadshow, pitching prospective investors of the company in the week of April 29, while getting ready for IPO debut on the NY stock exchange in May.

The company is expected to raise $10 billion at $90 billion to $100 billion valuations.