Adds context on autonomous driving tech and details on company's business in paragraphs 3-9
April 9 (Reuters) - Autonomous driving technology startup Nuro said on Wednesday it fetched a valuation of $6 billion after raising $106 million in its latest funding round, as investors bet on what is often touted as the future of mobility.
The funding — backed by T Rowe Price Associates, Fidelity Management and Research, Tiger Global, Greylock Partners and XN — comes more than three years after Nuro's last round that valued it at $8.6 billion at the height of venture-capital frenzy.
Valuations sobered up in the following years, and the company conducted two rounds of layoffs as an impending U.S. recession and the energy crisis in 2022 forced it to cut costs.
Since then, the self-driving industry, which boasts of some high-profile champions such as Tesla TSLA.O CEO Elon Musk, has shifted from bold promises to cautious progress as startups push ahead to commercialize the technology.
Nuro's funding underscores that despite subdued conditions elsewhere, investor appetite for hot sectors persists. U.S. President Donald Trump also wants to ease deployment barriers for self-driving vehicles.
Musk had said in January Tesla would roll out "autonomous ride-hailing for money" in Austin by June, while Alphabet GOOGL.O unit Waymo rolled out its robotaxi services exclusively on Uber's platform in the city last month.
Nuro, which combines self-driving AI and hardware into its Nuro Driver platform, expanded its business model in September by offering automakers and mobility licenses for its autonomous vehicle technology.
The Mountain View, California-based company signed a 10-year partnership with Uber Eats in 2022 to test food delivery via unmanned vehicles in some U.S. locations.
Founded by former lead engineers from Google's self-driving car project, now Waymo, Nuro had previously partnered with U.S. companies such as Kroger KR.N, Walmart WMT.N, Domino's Pizza DPZ.N and Chipotle Mexican Grill CMG.N.
Nuro said it would use the funds from the latest round to scale its AI technology and advance commercial partnerships.
(Reporting by Ateev Bhandari and Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
((Ateev.bhandari@thomsonreuters.com))
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