Kuffner said Woven Planet is already operating Arene in proof-of-concept vehicles and preproduction cars. It now expects to bring the software platform to the market by 2025, he said.
Renovo was ahead of Woven Planet in knowing how to analyze huge amounts of data quickly and create simulations, Kuffner said. So in keeping with Woven Planet’s mission of rapid expansion, Kuffner reached out to buy the company rather than wait to cultivate the same skills in-house.
Just as Toyota has top-notch tooling to assemble a vehicle’s hardware with bulletproof quality, Woven Planet wants cutting-edge tooling to develop foolproof software to run those cars.
Acquiring Renovo will allow the Toyota subsidiary to recover “orders of magnitude” of development costs over the long term, Kuffner predicted.
“We’re really invested in how to equip engineers with the best tools so that they can create value faster with functional safety in mind,” Kuffner said. “The fact is that the more complex software that you’re trying to ship as part of your product, the greater the testing need.”
Woven Planet did not disclose the cost of acquiring Renovo. It is Woven Planet’s third major acquisition this year, as part of Kuffner’s “go big or go home” strategy.
It follows July’s purchase of Carmera Inc., an American high-definition digital mapping company, and a $550 million buyout in April of Level 5, the self-driving car unit of ride-hailing giant Lyft.