Microsoft Takes an Investment in Cruise in its $2 Billion Round

One of the key investors in driverless company Cruise’s $2 billion new equity round is tech giant Microsoft.

The new round has pushed Cruise’s valuation up to $30 billion and GM, Honda and other institutional investors have also put more capital into the company.

Cruise’s partnership with Microsoft aims to provide benefits for both companies. While the former will be able to lock in lower prices for cloud services, the latter will be able to test some of its bleeding-edge systems that can handle workloads needed to bring machine learning and robotics, such as driverless vehicles, to life and at scale.

“Advances in digital technology are redefining every aspect of our work and life, including how we move people and goods,” remarked Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “As Cruise and GM’s preferred cloud, we will apply the power of Azure to help them scale and make autonomous transportation mainstream.”

Microsoft will also be GM’s preferred public cloud provider to help the automaker accelerate several of it digitization initiatives as well as streamline operations across digital supply chains.

The partnership will not only allow Cruise to accelerate the commercialization of its all-electric, self-driving vehicles, but it helps “GM realize even more benefits from cloud computing as we launch 30 new electric vehicles globally by 2025 and create new businesses and services to drive growth,” said GM Chairman and CEO Mary Barra.

Cruise recently tapped former Delta executive Gil West as its COO. West has had over 12 years pf experience running a massive global operation that had an annual $16 billion budget.

“Cruise is leading the way to change lives and up-end the status quo of transportation,” West said in a statement. “There will be no bigger shift in the transportation industry in my lifetime than the move to self-driving. I’ve been training my entire career for an opportunity like this one.”

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.