SoftBank fund pumps huge investment in self-driving delivery vehicles

A Silicon Valley startup working on self-driving delivery vehicles on Monday announced nearly a billion dollars in fresh funding from the SoftBank Vision Fund.

The move comes amid surging interest in robotic delivery from a range of companies from small startups to retail giant Amazon.

Last year, Nuro began testing its boxy, driverless delivery vehicles in Arizona in a partnership with the grocery store chain Kroger.

The service lets people place online orders and have them delivered by the robotic vehicles, which operate independently but are followed to make sure all goes to plan.

“Nuro’s world-class team has successfully scaled their self-driving technology out of the lab and into the streets,” SoftBank Investment Advisers managing partner Michael Ronen said.

The SoftBank fund, led by Japanese entrepreneur Masayoshi Son, has set a goal of investing at least $100 billion promising new technologies.