Mazda is one of a handful of companies fueling a $16 million funding round for Secondmind. The U.K.-based tech company is working to harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to help cut design and development times for automakers.
“The automotive industry needs to further accelerate the speed and efficiency of development due to the diversification of market needs and the increasing sophistication and complexity of technology,” said Naohito Saga, Mazda’s head of R&D. “We look forward to the partnership with Secondmind contributing to the further evolution of Mazda’s vehicle manufacturing.”
The tech company claims that it can help slash development times on new vehicles from years to months. Its AI seeks to cut the number of errors made during the design and testing stages by a factor of 10. That leads to fewer corrections, and 40 percent fewer prototypes, which ultimately helps save time and money during the development of new vehicles, with a particular focus on EVs.
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The money raised in this funding round will go towards ramping up sales and marketing for Secondmind, and will help accelerate the development of its cloud-native Secondmind Optimization Engine. In addition, it will increase its support of Mazda’s advanced AI research and education strategy, on which the companies have been collaborating for years.
“Secondmind and Mazda have been aligned from day one around a common goal of enabling continuous optimization of vehicle design and performance and helping the automotive industry deliver in the era of the software-defined vehicle,” said Gary Brotman, Secondmind CEO. “We are proud to support Mazda in opening new avenues for AI innovation in automotive engineering by way of Mazda’s advanced AI research and education strategy.”
Along with Mazda, other returning investors contributing to this funding round include Amadeus Capital Partners, Atlantic Bridge Ventures, and Cambridge Innovation Capital. It is not clear how much each contributed to the $16 million total.
