SEOUL, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CODE42, an autonomous transportation-as-a-service startup established last March, announced today that it raised USD 25 million (KRW 30 billion) in Pre-A funding, with investment by major Korean conglomerates Kia Motors, SK, LG, and CJ. CODE42 previously raised a seed stage investment of USD 1.7 million (KRW 2 billion) from Hyundai Motor Company in March.
As lead investor, Kia Motors contributed USD 12.5 million to the deal. The USD 25 million investment marks one of the largest Pre-A rounds of funding for the Korean startup market, with past references typically ranging under USD 10 million.
The newly raised funds will be utilized to complete development of CODE42's core UMOS (Urban Mobility Operating System) platform, as well as establish the global autonomous transportation-as-a-service ecosystem UMOS Connect. Promising to serve as the enabler of autonomous transportation-as-a-service, the UMOS platform aims to integrate various future mobilities such as autonomous vehicles, drones, and delivery robots to encompass all phases of mobility and logistics services from ride-hailing to robo-taxis to smart logistics and e-commerce.
"The investment demonstrates investor trust in our industry-best technology and enables us to leverage the strength of our partners' infrastructure and service capabilities to establish a next-generation mobility and logistics service platform," said Chang-Hyeon Song, CEO of CODE42. "We will be working closely with investor companies in autonomous driving and mapping technology, dispatching, fleet management, next-generation in-vehicle infotainment and associated connectivity."
CODE42, established in March 2019, is an autonomous transportation-as-a-service startup headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, founded by former Naver CTO, Chang-Hyeon Song. Having built a track record of innovative software engineering with multinational IT companies including HP, Microsoft and Apple, Mr. Song, in his roles as CTO of Naver, and CEO of Naver Lab, successfully led a variety of innovative projects including the AI speaker Clova, in-vehicle-infotainment service AWAY, Papago, self-driving technology, HD mapping and robotics solutions, as demonstrated at CES 2019.
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