May Mobility Raises A Series D

May Mobility raised a $105 million Series D venture capital round!

This is great, both because it is good news for the AV space generally, and because May, specifically, is a kind of awesome “little engine that could” endeavor.

May has been around for a long time, quietly plugging away at different autonomous vehicle deployments, mainly in the AV shared-ride shuttle domain. They’re based out of Michigan, unlike so many of the other AV startups that are Silicon Valley-based. And they’ve held a much lower profile, but also managed to outlast, much larger efforts, like Argo and Uber ATG and Lyft Level 5.

The Series D was led by NTT, a Japanese telecommunications company. The press release indicates some sort of partnership with Toyota:

The companies will work with Toyota Motor Corporation to develop an autonomous driving ecosystem, working with local stakeholders to deploy May Mobility-equipped autonomous vehicles across a variety of vehicle platforms. The companies will incorporate May Mobility’s technology to enhance Japanese transportation networks.

I am curious to what extent this will integrate with, or provide an alternative to, Toyota’s own Woven Planet AV efforts.