Ocado, the U.K. online grocer that has been making strides reselling its technology to other grocery companies to help them build and run their own online ordering and delivery operations, is making an investment today into what it believes will be the next chapter of how that business will grow: it is taking a £10 million ($13.8 million) stake in Oxbotica, a U.K. startup that develops autonomous driving systems. Ocado is treating this as a strategic investment to develop AI-powered, self-driving systems that will work across its operations, from vehicles within and around its packing warehouses through to the last-mile vehicles that deliver grocery orders to people’s homes. It says it expects the first products to come out of this deal — most likely in closed environments like warehouses rather the less structured prospect of open streets — to be online in two years. “We are not constraining ourselves to work in any one use case,” said Alex Harvey, chief of advanced technology at Ocado, in an interview. But to roll out autonomous systems everywhere, he added, “we realize there are areas where we will need regulatory complianc… Click below to read the full story from TechCrunch
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Oxbotica raises $13.8M from Ocado to build autonomous vehicle tech for the online grocer’s logistics network
