INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Voyage, the autonomous vehicle startup that spun out of Udacity, announced Thursday it has raised $31 million in a round led by Franklin
The company, which operates a ride-hailing service in retirement communities using self-driving cars supported by human safety drivers, has
raised a total of $52 million since launching in 2017
The new funding includes a $3 million convertible note.Voyage CEO Oliver Cameron has big plans for the fresh injection of capital,
including hiring and expanding its fleet of self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans, which always have a human safety driver behind the
explaining that a cost-effective vehicle designed to be driverless is the essential piece required to make this a profitable business.The
has had some success attracting high-profile people to fill executive-level positions, including CTO Drew Gray, who previously worked at
Uber ATG, Otto, Cruise and Tesla, as well as former NIO and Tesla employee Davide Bacchet as director of autonomy.Funds will also be used
to increase its fleet of second-generation self-driving cars (called G2) that are currently being used in a 4,000-resident retirement
community in San Jose, Calif., as well as The Villages, a 40-square-mile, 125,000-resident retirement city in Florida
two retirement communities in which Voyage currently tests and operates
cost-effective vehicle ever made because the industry still is in its infancy, but it will be a huge, huge, huge improvement over our G2
modified Ford Fusion vehicles to test its autonomous vehicle technology, then introduced in July 2018 Chrysler Pacifica minivans, its second
generation of autonomous vehicles
But the end goal has always been a driverless product.TechCrunch previously reported that the company has partnered with an automaker to
provide this next-generation vehicle that has been designed specifically for autonomous driving
first-generation vehicle, a Ford Fusion.Most importantly, and a detail Cameron did share with TechCrunch, is that the vehicle it uses for
its driverless service will have redundancies and safety-critical applications built into it.Voyage also has deals in place with Enterprise
