AV Startup May Mobility Locks Up Another $105M From NTT, Toyota

Just a couple weeks after Cruise’s announcement it will suspend its self-driving taxi program rocked the autonomous vehicle industry, another startup has raised big money from some big-named investors.

Ann Arbor, Michigan-based May Mobility closed a $105 million Series D led by the NTT Group and joined by new and existing investors including Toyota Ventures, Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Co., State Farm Ventures, BMW i Ventures, Cyrus Capital and Trucks Venture Capital.

The new cash brings May Mobility’s total funding to approximately $300 million since being founded in 2017. The company last raised a $111 million round in July 2022.

May Mobility develops AV technology and deploys fleets of vehicles to municipal and business customers.

With the new round, NTT Group has the exclusive rights to distribute May Mobility’s proprietary autonomous vehicle technology throughout Japan. The companies will work with Toyota to develop an autonomous driving ecosystem.

“Our success in this fundraising is a strong validation of May’s proven business model and provides the fuel and momentum to realize our next phase of growth,” co-founder and CEO Edwin Olson said in a release. “Our approach has been to work with best-in-class partners to bring our technology and services to market and we’re excited to partner with a leading multinational technology firm of NTT’s caliber and to develop our business in Japan together.”

AV funding

Funding to autonomous vehicle startups have been having a rough year to date. Such startups have raised less than $4.6 billion — which puts the sector on pace for its lowest funding total since 2020, per Crunchbase data.

The sector saw a high for funding in 2021 when the industry received $12.5 billion. Last year, that number dropped to $5.9 billion.

The biggest round so far this year went to Pittsburgh-based self-driving commercial trucking startup Stack AV, which reportedly raised $1 billion in September.