IP Group's Oxbiotica raises £36m in series B round

Intellectual property investor IP Group announced on Wednesday that its autonomous vehicle software portfolio company Oxbotica has raised £36m of new capital in a series B round, from both new and existing investors.

The FTSE 250 company said that following completion, IP Group would hold a direct undiluted beneficial stake of 15% in Oxbotica.

It said it committed £4m to the round, which was led by Bp Ventures, with funding from other investors including BGF, Halma, HostPlus,Tencent, Venture Science and funds advised by Doxa Partners.

The funding would be used to accelerate Oxbotica's commercial deployment of its autonomy software platform across multiple industries and key markets.

IP Group described Oxbotica's product as a software platform providing ‘universal autonomy’.

It said it is a rapid-to-deploy, low energy, hardware-agnostic autonomy solution, applicable to a range of vehicle types both on- and off-road.

The technology supported Oxbotica's horizontal business-to-business model, providing operators, integrators and manufacturers the autonomy functionality and flexibility they needed, whether a ‘full stack’ or on a component-by-component basis.

“Oxbotica provides autonomy where it makes sense today: delivering safety, cost and environmental benefits,” said IP Group clean technology partner Jamie Vollbracht.

“Two years after IP Group's first investment, we are delighted to be able to welcome multiple value-adding investors to the share register.

“This substantial funding round will enable Oxbotica to move to the next stage, delivering those benefits in multiple applications across the globe.”

At 0826 GMT, shares in IP Group were up 3.65% at 108p.