Sweden’s Einride aims to replace traditional freight vehicles with its driverless, electric pods; raises €91.4M

Swedish autonomous and electric freight mobility company Einride has announced today that it has raised $110M (nearly €91.4M) Series B funding from new investors Temasek, Soros Fund Management LLC, Northzone, Maersk Growth and Build Capital. Existing investors EQT Ventures, Plum Alley Investments, Norrsken VC, Ericsson and NordicNinja VC also participated in the round.

According to the company, this capital will be used to scale up deployments with Einride’s major customer base in Europe and the U.S.

Pods on roads

Founded in 2016 by Robert Falck, Linnéa Kornehed, and Filip Lilja, Einride is a Swedish technology company that develops and provides freight mobility solutions based on electric and autonomous vehicles.

Back in 2019, according to the company, Einride’s pod became the world’s first autonomous, all-electric truck to operate a commercial flow for DB Schenker with a permit on the public road.

The company cited a study by Global Industry Analysts Inc, according to which, the global market for freight trucking reached $4.2T in the year 2020 and is projected to reach $5.5T by 2027. According to Einride, the growing market size, coupled with the fact that road freight is a major contributing factor for global CO2 emissions, has resulted in an overwhelming demand for long-term sustainable transport solutions.

It claims that since its inception it has helped reduce customer CO₂ emissions by 94 per cent compared to driving with diesel, including embodied emissions. Its existing customers include Coca-Cola, Oatly, Lidl and Electrolux.

The company’s most well-known product is the Einride Pod, which it claims is the only driverless freight mobility vehicle on the market and in commercial use. The Einride Pod also holds the current global speed record for electric and autonomous freight. 

“We are proud to be backed by some of the world’s most notable investors as they support our mission of becoming the leading provider of freight transport-as-a-service,” says Robert Falck, CEO and co-founder of Einride. “Their network, reach and experience will be invaluable as we further accelerate our strong momentum as the leader in autonomous and electric freight transportation, and as we expand into new markets. Einride is dedicated to transforming road freight transport as we know it, making it more cost-efficient, safe, and sustainable.”

In addition to its business-to-business transportation modules, Einride also offers the Einride Mobility Platform, a cloud-native transport execution system for autonomous and electric road transport. According to the company, this platform allows customers to use real-time information and data-driven insights to implement sustainable, cost-efficient, and high-performing transport logistics.