Forterra, a developer of self-driving technology for military and industrial vehicles, has raised $75 million in fresh funding to speed up product development.
A trio of investment firms — London, U.K.-based Hedosophia, New York's Moore Strategic Ventures and San Francisco's XYZ Venture Capital — led the Series B funding round for the Clarksburg company. Standard Investments also participated in the round as did repeat investors Crescent Cove Advisors, Four More Capital and Chevy Chase-based Enlightenment Capital.
The funding brings Forterra's total outside investment to more than $318 million, which included a $228 million Series A investment in December 2021.
"This funding allows us to further develop, test, and deploy self-driving platforms with ever-increasing capabilities for both defense and industrial applications," Forterra CEO Josh Araujo said in a statement.
More specifically, Forterra plans to use the capital to further build out its proprietary autonomy platform, AutoDrive. The tech has been installed on large combat trucks, small equipment transports and mobile missile systems. Its platform is adaptable and can be designed to meet the specific needs of commercial or industrial clients as well as those from the Department of Defense.
The funding follows a major rebranding the 22-year-old company underwent in February when it swapped its name of Robotic Research Autonomous Industries to Forterra. As part of that rebrand, Forterra also began pursuing more commercial clients rather than primarily targeting defense-focused companies. Its tech can be found on self-driving yard trucks at a Detroit freight facility from Truck Specialized Information Services. It's also maintaining driverless off-highway logging trucks for FPInnovations in Canada.
Over the past year, Forterra also formed a partnership with Denmark-based Kalmar Automotive for the production of self-driving yard trucks utilizing Forterra's AutoDrive platform.
Still, defense remains a prime area for growth, Araujo told me in February.
"The expected growth of [the Defense Department's] ground autonomy programs will give us a stable financial foundation from which to innovate and grow," he said.
Araujo, formerly the firm's chief operating officer, was promoted to CEO in January, succeeding Founder Alberto Lacaze. Lacaze, a 2023 Diversity in Business Awards honoree from the Washington Business Journal, still serves as president and board chair of the 270-person company.
