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From ZeroHedge:
Step aside Tesla and Uber: there is a new-selfdriving cool kid in town.
On Thursday morning, tech-investing giant SoftBank Vision Fund, which over the past year has been spending money like the Swiss National Bank buying US stocks on tilt, announced it would will invest $2.25 billion in General Motors Co.’s driverless-car unit valuing it at $11.5 billion, creating a new start in the ongoing fierce battle by tech companies and startups to become the first to commercialize autonomous vehicles.
GM said that the fund, an affiliate of Japan’s SoftBank Group, will take a 19.6% stake in GM Cruise Holdings LLC, a newly formed entity primarily made up of Cruise Automation, the driverless-car developer that GM acquired in early 2016 for around $1 billion.
The Vision Fund’s investment will be staggered, coming in two tranches: an initial $900 million payment, and another of $1.35 billion once Cruise’s autonomous vehicles are ready for commercial deployment.
The deal will provide not only a major financial backer - a la what Uber tried to do with Warren Buffett and failed - but will also "afford GM increased flexibility with respect to capital allocation" as it plows more money into developing a network of autonomous ride-share vehicles, targeted for sometime next year, GM said....MORE
