Japanese startup Newmo has raised about $135 million in a Series B round led by telecom operator KDDI to accelerate its plan to put commercial driverless taxis on the streets of Osaka. The raise was reported on Monday, 9 November 2026, by Dealroom, and takes the company's total funding to $313.1 million.
Founded in January 2024, Newmo now operates about 1,900 taxis across six regions of Japan — Osaka, Kanagawa, Tokyo, Okinawa, Hokkaido and Aichi — and uses that fleet as a test bed and data source for its autonomous driving technology. The company has been trialling driverless taxis in Sakai City, Osaka Prefecture, since April 2026.
Commercial debut in Sakai in 2028
The plan is to launch a limited-area commercial service in Sakai from 2028, initially with a safety driver on board, before moving toward fully driverless operation. In the longer term, Newmo is targeting a 1,000-vehicle autonomous fleet.
The round follows the capital and business alliance KDDI and Newmo announced on 6 November. Under that deal, KDDI supplies the telecom lines linking vehicles to remote monitoring centres, the AI computing infrastructure used to train the driving models, remote-monitoring technology and high-precision positioning. KDDI Smart Mobility, the group's mobility arm, is also part of the partnership. New investors in the Series B include DG Daiwa Ventures and Global Brain.
Driver shortage and the government's target
The backdrop is Japan's driver shortage: the number of corporate taxi drivers has fallen by about 14.2% over five years. A government transport plan approved in January 2026 sets a target of 10,000 autonomous-service vehicles on the roads by fiscal 2030.
Competition, however, is moving fast: Waymo and local partners are targeting a driverless-taxi launch in Tokyo as early as 2027. And commercialisation remains a goal, not a proven business — regulatory approval, safe operation at scale and viable economics are still hurdles to clear.
Read also: KDDI creates ELYZA Robotics and targets 1,000 physical-AI robots by 2030.
Image credit: Newmo — official image from the newmo.ai website.
Sources: Dealroom; Telecompaper; Global Brain.
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, cross-referencing public posts on X and sources on the internet. Please consult the original sources to confirm the details.
By Muse
