Aurora raises $853 million while self-driving truck competitors falter

Aurora Innovation is forging ahead with its self-driving truck efforts at a time most other competitors are scaling back or curtailing their plans.

The company added $853 million to its coffers in July, executives said Wednesday during a second-quarter earnings call. That's $33 million more than they announced two weeks ago.

The increase arises from underwriters exercising an option to purchase additional shares within 30 days of the initial offering, Aurora CEO Chris Urmson said.

With the capital infusion, Aurora expects to have $1.6 billion to carry the company through its planned commercial launch at the end of 2024 and into the second half of 2025, he said.

In its report, the company said it narrowed its net loss for the second quarter to $218 million compared with a loss of $1.1 billion in the same quarter last year. It didn't report revenue for the quarter vs. $21 million last year.

Aurora said its strategic acquisitions of two lidar companies, its new partnership with global auto supplier Continental and group of like-minded investors give the company the staying power needed to succeed.

"We have said for many years that we expected consolidation to happen and for the landscape to clear and to be positioned as one of the folks that come out and have an impact and be victorious in this space," Urmson told analysts on the call.

Aurora's developments come a week after a major competitor, Waymo, said it would scale back its trucking efforts to focus on robotaxis. Other competitors like Embark and Locomation stopped operations in recent months, while TuSimple is exploring a sale of its U.S. assets.

But analysts remain bullish on Aurora.

Even before Wednesday's call, Tom White, a senior equity research analyst at D.A. Davidson Cos., gave Aurora a "buy" rating in a July 7 note to investors.

His target price for Aurora is $7 per share, more than double its Aug. 2 closing price of $3.08 per share.

Aurora is completing 50 autonomous hauls per week in commercial service — with human safety drivers aboard — and logging more than 17,000 miles per week in real-world driving, the company said Wednesday.

The company noted progress on durability testing with truck partner Paccar in a test with a Kenworth cab. Separately, Aurora said it completed the build of its first autonomy-enabled prototype with Volvo Trucks.

Investors who participated in Aurora's July 21 private placement include: Uber Technologies, T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley, Fidelity Investments, financial services firms Capital Group Cos. and Baillie Gifford, hedge fund XN LP, venture capital firms Durable Capital Partners and Annox Capital Investments, and the family trust of venture capitalist Michelangelo Volpi, who co-founded Index Ventures, the third largest investor in Aurora.

Along with Kodiak Robotics, Aurora is well-positioned as a potential leader in autonomous long-haul trucking. Gatik, a self-driving truck company that focuses on middle-mile routes, has expanded testing with partners such as Kroger and increased its work force this year.

Other companies such as Plus and Robotic Research are taking more distinct approaches within trucking, incorporating driver-assist systems and nonpublic-road capabilities into their offerings.

But others developing Level 4 automated systems for long-haul routes on public roads are stalling. Last week, Alphabet-owned Waymo announced it will step back from Waymo Via, its commercial autonomous trucking unit, and "double down" on its ride-hailing business. That came after Waymo laid off 8 percent of its workforce in March, many of whom came from the company's trucking division.

"They were basically shutting down trucking," Guidehouse Insights principal analyst Sam Abuelsamid said.

The combination of Kodiak Robotics' deal to equip 800 trucks with self-driving systems for freight broker Loadsmith and Aurora's successful capital raise likely played a role in Waymo's decision to step away from self-driving trucking, Abuelsamid said.

Waymo's ramp-down on its autonomous trucking business follows TuSimple's June 28 announcement that it will explore the possibility of selling its U.S. business.

In March, Embark Technologies shut down. Its $71 million merger with Applied Intuition of Mountain View, Calif. is set to be completed this month.

In late February, Pittsburgh's Locomation shut down because the self-driving truck company reportedly could not raise additional investment capital.