Battery storage startup Antora Energy has raised $550 million in Series C funding to expand production of its thermal batteries, which help heavy industry and data centres lower costs whilst running on renewable energy. The round was co-led by Eclipse and G2 Venture Partners. Participating investors included Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures, as well as Decarbonization Partners, a joint venture between BlackRock and Temasek Holdings. The funding will enable Antora to build a second factory to produce its modular batteries for pairing with renewables or grid power. The company's thermal batteries are designed to meet growing demand as renewable energy adoption increases.

Waabi lands historic financing, expands to robotaxis. Canadian autonomous trucking technology developer Waabi has raised $750 million in a Series C financing co-led by Khosla Ventures and G2 Venture Partners. Waabi says it's the largest fundraise in Canadian history, at more than $1 billion Canadian. It also partnered with Uber to deploy tie Waabi Driver exclusively in the Uber platform. Waabi will use the funds to expand its autonomous trucking development as well as its expansion into robotaxis. "We invest in the companies that are leading the AI era. Waabi has developed a truly groundbreaking physical AI platform that represents a fundamental leap forward in how next generation driverless technology is being developed," said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. "Their remarkable progress in autonomous trucking and rapid expansion into robotaxis demonstrates how their technology unlocks for the first time true scale in the real world. This breakthrough will define AI for decades to come." Added Brook Porter, partner and co-founder at G2 Venture Partners: "Waabi is fundamentally changing the trajectory of autonomous transportation. Their simulation-first end-to-end AI is a powerful enabler, accelerating commercial adoption while dramatically reducing capital needs to scale. Waabi is unlocking the potential for autonomy to drive vehicle efficiency and utilization, catalyzing the shift to a more sustainable transportation system." trucknews.com is the trucking industry's leading information source, delivering vital insights to fleet executives, operations teams, maintenance personnel, owner-operators, and more. Readers turn to our experienced journalists for award-winning trucking industry news, trends, technical advances, equipment maintenance techniques, and business practices alike. This is a moderated forum. Comments will no longer be published unless they are accompanied by a first and last name and a verifiable email address. (Today's Trucking will not publish or share the email address.) Profane language and content deemed to be libelous, racist, or threatening in nature will not be published under any circumstances.

Oversubscribed round led by Khosla and G2 catapults Toronto startup into robotaxi race with massive Uber deal The post Waabi hauls in $750M Series C to become Canada’s newest autonomous vehicle unicorn appeared first on FreightWaves.