Munich, Germany — FERNRIDE, a pionee­ring German company in the field of auto­no­mous and elec­tric trucks, announ­ced the successful closing of a Series A finan­cing round, raising a total of $31 million. These funds will be used to acce­le­rate the tran­si­tion to auto­ma­ted and sustainable logistics.

FERNRIDE is funded by venture capi­tal inves­tors 10x Foun­ders, Promus Ventures, Fly Ventures, Speed­in­vest and Push Vent ures as well as corpo­rate venture capi­tal inves­tors HHLA Next, DB Schen­ker via Schen­ker Ventures and Krone. Inves­tors have confi­dence in FERNRIDE’s vision and confirm the urgency for the indus­try to trans­form and address its chal­lenges. The company combi­nes a decade of rese­arch with indus­try exper­tise from auto­mo­tive and auto­no­mous driving leaders. Former senior execu­ti­ves from BMW, MAN, Mobi­leye and Argo.AI are part of the team. The company’s goal is to become the global leader in auto­no­mous elec­tric trucks within five years.

“As we profoundly change the way the logi­stics indus­try opera­tes, it is criti­cal to part­ner with some of the industry’s leading play­ers. The stra­te­gic invest­ments going into our Series A will help acce­le­rate this trans­for­ma­tion,” said Hendrik Kramer, CEO and Co-Foun­­der of FERNRIDE.

FERNRIDE is at the fore­front of human-machine inter­ac­tion tech­no­logy deve­lo­p­ment here. The company’s unique approach has alre­ady won the trust of leading indus­trial groups such as Volks­wa­gen, DB Schen­ker, BSH and HHLA. Over the past twelve months, the company has inte­gra­ted self-driving trucks into their busi­ness proces­ses. FERNRIDE is using the latest funding to expand its inter­na­tio­nal colla­bo­ra­tion with exis­ting and new custo­mers and to further deve­lop its “human-assis­­ted auto­nomy” technology.

M‍shortage of truck drivers

Although auto­no­mous driving as a concept is not new to the logi­stics indus­try, this is the first time a company has mana­ged to bring the tech­no­logy into opera­tio­nal use as a working solu­tion for custo­mers. The biggest chal­lenges in the logi­stics indus­try today are the extreme shortage of truck drivers, rising CO2 emis­si­ons and low profit margins. These problems are alre­ady having a signi­fi­cant impact on society and are predic­ted to conti­nue to grow. For exam­ple, the current shortage of 400,000 truck drivers in Europe alone is expec­ted to increase to 2,000,000 truck drivers by 2026. Auto­no­mous driving seems to offer a solu­tion to many of these problems. Howe­ver, previous attempts to successfully, econo­mic­ally deploy such auto­no­mous concepts failed.‍

FERNRIDE’s unique approach addres­ses these indus­­try-speci­­fic chal­lenges for its custo­mers today, enab­ling the bene­fits and relia­ble opera­tion of driver­less trucks from day one of inte­gra­tion. The company has deve­lo­ped an end-to-end solu­tion that can be seam­lessly inte­gra­ted into running opera­ti­ons without caus­ing disrup­tion or downtime.

“Our custo­mers bene­fit from our “human-assis­­ted auto­nomy” approach from the begin­ning of our colla­bo­ra­tion,” says Hendrik Kramer, CEO and Co-Foun­­der of FERNRIDE. “Our current custo­mers operate more than 1,000 trucks in yard and port logi­stics in Europe alone, so it is important to offer an easily scalable solu­tion. With FERNRIDE, we can do just that, because with our “human-assis­­ted auto­nomy” approach, we can alre­ady offer a working, relia­ble solu­tion today.”‍‍

Trucks in yard and port logi­stics repre­sent a $25 billion market in Europe and North America and are just the start­ing point for the trans­for­ma­tion of the truck­ing industry.

About FERNRIDE

FERNRIDE offers scalable auto­ma­tion solu­ti­ons for trucks in yard and port logi­stics. These solu­ti­ons increase produc­ti­vity, promote sustaina­bi­lity and improve employee safety within the logi­stics indus­try. The company is pursuing the tech­no­lo­gi­cal approach of “human-assis­­ted auto­nomy,” which enables remote take­over of auto­no­mous elec­tric trucks. This ensu­res seam­less inte­gra­tion and relia­ble opera­tion of auto­no­mous trucks for logi­stics compa­nies. FERNRIDE’s inno­va­tive tech­no­logy is based on more than ten years of scien­ti­fic rese­arch. FERNRIDE uses these with well-known custo­mers — inclu­ding Volks­wa­gen, HHLA, DB Schen­ker and BSH — to tackle the industry’s major chal­lenges, such as the shortage of drivers and the logi­stics sector’s nega­tive envi­ron­men­tal foot­print. The company was foun­ded by Hendrik Kramer, Maxi­mi­lian Fisser and Jean-Michael Georg and today employs over 120 people at its sites in Munich and Wolfs­burg. www.fernride.com

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