SafeAI brings in $38M for construction retrofit kits

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SafeAI announced that it brought in $38 million in Series B funding. The company offers robotic retrofit kits for construction and mining vehicles. 

SafeAI plans to use the funding to accelerate its autonomous vehicle technology roadmap and to scale operations globally to support its growing customer base and deliver on contractual milestones. The company plans to expand its developer and engineering teams. SafeAI especially wants to fill the position of Chief Technology Officer to lead its efforts in the autonomous vehicle engineering space. 

“Autonomy has existed in mining for more than two decades—but its growth has stalled when it needed to skyrocket. I founded SafeAI to change that,” Bibhrajit Halder, founder and CEO at SafeAI, said. “We’ve designed a flexible, interoperable, scalable retrofit model to enable companies across heavy industry to uplevel their operations. The mining industry has been successfully implementing Autonomy on a limited scale for years. Our approach is purpose-built to finally accelerate autonomous accessibility and deployment on a significant scale. This funding is just the beginning of our next chapter of expansion and growth.”

The funding round included participation from Builders VC, McKinley Management, George Kaiser Family Foundation and Energy Innovation Capital. Moog Inc also joined the round as a strategic investor. Existing investors Autotech Ventures, Brick & Mortar Ventures, Embark Ventures, Newlab and Vimson Group also participated in the round. 

“Moog Inc. is focused on enabling productivity, safety and sustainability when performance really matters. Our autonomy solutions transform equipment into high integrity robots, enabling autonomous operations in challenging environments,” Joe Baldi, Director of Strategy and Partnerships for the construction sector of Moog Inc, said. “Through this investment in SafeAI, we can collaborate to accelerate the adoption of autonomy for heavy equipment and help companies across construction and mining realize the benefits to their operations”

SafeAI’s retrofit kits equip aftermarket vehicles and fleets with autonomous capabilities, regardless of manufacturer or vehicle type. 

In 2022, Safe AI announced partnerships with MACA to deploy 100 mining trucks, Siemens on a collaboration for vehicle electrification and autonomy and Obayashi Corporation, to develop solutions for construction. The company has employees in the U.S., Australia, Japan and India, and was able to more than double its headcount in 2022.