Photo: Mapillary
Earlier this week, BMW announced the opening of a new research center in Germany dedicated to the development of technologies in the area of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analysis. The goal of the people working there is ultimately creating high-level autonomous cars.
No self-driving car can operate however without having access to accurate map data. Currently, there are several tech companies providing such data, but so far carmakers themselves have pretty much stayed clear of this part of the new automotive industry.
On Friday, BMW said that would no longer be the case, as it has decided to poor some capital into a tech company. Called Mapillary, the Sweden-base company will receive German capital through the BMW I Ventures division.
Mapillary allegedly has the world’s largest street-level imagery dataset, containing 260 million images that have been shared by individuals, companies, cities, governments, and NGOs. Those images are connected through computer vision, and then map data is extracted and then used to update HD maps.
The scale of BMW’s investment has not been announced, but together with other investors the likes of Samsung Catalyst Fund and NavInfo, Mapillary is said to have raised a total of $15 million.
"There is a growing need for an independent provider of street-level imagery and map data, which also acts as a sharing platform among different players,” said Uwe Higgen, BMW i Ventures managing partner.
“Data sharing is crucial to maintaining accurate maps and to the development of safe autonomous vehicles. Mapillary has made great progress and built technology that will let everyone update maps in a scalable way.”
BMW’s investment comes on the heels of rival Daimler announcing a partnership with HERE, which will provide HD maps for upcoming generations of automated and autonomous Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
Currently, BMW is testing incipient self-driving technologies in a couple of 7 Series prototypes, aiming for the parallel development of both Level 3 and 5 automation.
On Friday, BMW said that would no longer be the case, as it has decided to poor some capital into a tech company. Called Mapillary, the Sweden-base company will receive German capital through the BMW I Ventures division.
Mapillary allegedly has the world’s largest street-level imagery dataset, containing 260 million images that have been shared by individuals, companies, cities, governments, and NGOs. Those images are connected through computer vision, and then map data is extracted and then used to update HD maps.
The scale of BMW’s investment has not been announced, but together with other investors the likes of Samsung Catalyst Fund and NavInfo, Mapillary is said to have raised a total of $15 million.
"There is a growing need for an independent provider of street-level imagery and map data, which also acts as a sharing platform among different players,” said Uwe Higgen, BMW i Ventures managing partner.
“Data sharing is crucial to maintaining accurate maps and to the development of safe autonomous vehicles. Mapillary has made great progress and built technology that will let everyone update maps in a scalable way.”
BMW’s investment comes on the heels of rival Daimler announcing a partnership with HERE, which will provide HD maps for upcoming generations of automated and autonomous Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
Currently, BMW is testing incipient self-driving technologies in a couple of 7 Series prototypes, aiming for the parallel development of both Level 3 and 5 automation.
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