South Korea-based Morai, a developer of full-stack autonomous vehicle simulation technology, has successfully secured US$20m in a Series B funding round. The round includes investment from new investors Korea Investment Partners, KB Investment and the state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB), as well as from existing investors Naver’s D2 Startup Factory, Hyundai Motor Group’s ZERO1NE, Kakao Ventures, and Atinum Investment, bringing Morai’s total funding to date to US$25m.
The company was co-founded in 2018 by three autonomous driving researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Ever since, the company has established itself as South Korea’s sole provider of full-stack autonomous vehicle simulation solutions. Morai says that its competitive edge comes from technology to automatically convert HD map data into digital twins, thereby providing large-scale simulation environments. The company also recently unveiled a cloud-based autonomous vehicle simulation technology, which uses the cloud to build simulation environments without hardware restrictions and enables simultaneous testing.
“We will focus on utilizing the funding to hire quality talents,” said Jiwon Jung, CEO of Morai. “Together with industry talents, we will continue sharpening our technological edge to further enhance our global competitiveness.”