{"id":7442,"date":"2016-10-05T16:35:28","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T16:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minutes.machine.market\/?p=7442"},"modified":"2016-10-05T16:35:28","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T16:35:28","slug":"why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Caterpillar is Investing in This Self-Driving Vehicle Company"},"content":{"rendered":"

Self-driving vehicles that can seamlessly shuttle people around cities are years away\u2014perhaps even decades, depending on who is providing the forecast. But the founders of Clearpath Robotics<\/a> aren\u2019t worried. They already have fleets of self-driving vehicles operating on roads with traffic, intersections, and pedestrians.<\/p>\n

But instead of shuttling people through city streets, the startup\u2019s self-driving vehicles navigate goods through the miles of roads inside massive industrial factories, including at Caterpillar.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnlike city streets, a factory floor is a controlled environment, which makes it an ideal place to introduce self-driving vehicles at scale,\u201d said Clearpath CEO and co-founder Matt Rendall. \u201cCompanies like Google, Tesla, and Uber are still testing, whereas our self-driving vehicles are commercially available today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0And it\u2019s catching the attention of investors and industrial companies.<\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Clearpath Robotics, a Canadian startup, announced Wednesday it has raised $30 million in a funding round led by iNovia Capital, with participation from Caterpillar Ventures, GE Ventures, Eclipse Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank. The funding will be used to grow the company\u2019s industrial division.<\/div>\n
\n

The funds will be used to expand the company, namely hiring people in marketing, sales, and manufacturing. The company employs more than 155 people and could reach about 250 a year from now.<\/p>\n

Clearpath\u2019s founders participated in a U.S. Department of Defense-funded robotics competition to design a robot that could detect and remove land mines. After receiving a $300,000 angel investment, the company pivoted to research and development\u2014working with labs at major companies, academic institutes, and government agencies such as the Department of Defense and NASA.<\/p>\n

Clearpath Robotics spun out of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada in 2008. In its early days, Clearpath was focused on developing autonomous vehicles, but the industry didn\u2019t yet exist, Rendall told Fortune. \u201cWe felt it was going to [be] big, but we were a little bit ahead of our time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company shifted its focus, and in 2015, raised $11.2 million in a Series A round. It launched an industrial division called OTTO Motors to develop self-driving vehicles to automate the movement of inventory in factories.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you focus on indoor industrial self-driving vehicles versus outdoor consumer self-driving vehicles, it\u2019s a path where we have much greater control of our own destiny,\u201d Rendall said. \u201cYou\u2019re not holding your breath waiting for the regulatory and insurance questions to be answered, plus all of the testing and safety and the amount of capital required.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to Fortune<\/a>, Caterpillar<\/a> and GE are already customers of OTTO Motors. John Deere<\/a> has deployed OTTO\u2019s material handling equipment in its facilities. In all, OTTO Motors is working with about a dozen large logistics and manufacturing companies.<\/p>\n

by Lora Kolodny<\/a> (@lorakolodny<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Self-driving vehicles that can seamlessly shuttle people around cities are years away\u2014perhaps even decades, depending on who is providing the forecast. But the founders of Clearpath Robotics aren\u2019t worried. They already have fleets of self-driving vehicles operating on roads with traffic, intersections, and pedestrians. But instead of shuttling people through city streets, the startup\u2019s self-driving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[266],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Caterpillar is Investing in This Self-Driving Vehicle Company - MachineMarket Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"googlebot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"bingbot\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Caterpillar is Investing in This Self-Driving Vehicle Company - MachineMarket Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Self-driving vehicles that can seamlessly shuttle people around cities are years away\u2014perhaps even decades, depending on who is providing the forecast. But the founders of Clearpath Robotics aren\u2019t worried. They already have fleets of self-driving vehicles operating on roads with traffic, intersections, and pedestrians. But instead of shuttling people through city streets, the startup\u2019s self-driving […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"MachineMarket Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-10-05T16:35:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/clearpath_caterpillar-machine.market-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"738\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"492\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"CraneMarket | Cranes for Sale and Rent\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/\",\"sameAs\":[],\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#logo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/crane-market-logo.png\",\"width\":282,\"height\":81,\"caption\":\"CraneMarket | Cranes for Sale and Rent\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#logo\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"MachineMarket Blog\",\"description\":\"Machine News\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\",\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/clearpath_caterpillar-machine.market-1.jpg\",\"width\":738,\"height\":492},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/\",\"name\":\"Why Caterpillar is Investing in This Self-Driving Vehicle Company - MachineMarket Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-10-05T16:35:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-10-05T16:35:28+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/#webpage\"},\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d55314291bc2800387533231d1e82150\"},\"headline\":\"Why Caterpillar is Investing in This Self-Driving Vehicle Company\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-10-05T16:35:28+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-10-05T16:35:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/#webpage\"},\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cranemarket.com\/blog\/why-caterpillar-is-investing-in-this-self-driving-vehicle-company\/#primaryimage\"},\"keywords\":\"caterpillar\",\"articleSection\":\"Constuction & Business News,Manufacturer News\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d55314291bc2800387533231d1e82150\",\"name\":\"admin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/#personlogo\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6761c958e8b054582d0855a0e4bc5407?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"admin\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/machine.market\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}