Our Favorite Moments from 2019

2019 has been nothing short of an amazing year at Aurora. From growing to over 400 people across four offices to leveraging FMCW lidar in our vehicles to our Ugly Sweater competition, we have so much to be thankful for this year.

To celebrate our progress, here are our favorite moments from the year — we hope you enjoy them just as much as we have!

1. We’re now over 400 people!

2. We opened our fourth official office in Bozeman, Montana, adding to San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Pittsburgh locations.

3. We published a comprehensive Safety Report that showcases how we’re planning to deploy the Aurora Driver safely, quickly and broadly.

4. We secured a $600+ million Series B round, which was led by Sequoia, and included the addition of great new investment-partners like Amazon, T. Rowe Price, and our automotive partner, Hyundai.

5. We strengthened our partnerships that will enable us to continue to deliver the Aurora Driver more broadly in 2020.

6. We welcomed Blackmore, the industry-leading lidar company, to our team. We’re excited to share how FMCW lidar accelerates our vision to deliver self-driving technology to safely move people and goods.

7. We successfully integrated the platform-agnostic Aurora Driver into several passenger and commercial vehicles, including an 18-wheel semi-truck. We look forward to sharing updates on how the Aurora Driver is perfect for trucking and last-mile delivery in the near future.

8. We welcomed our friends to experience the Aurora Driver for the first time and are excited to host more rides in 2020.

9. Thanks to our team of engineers who continue to build and fine-tune unprecedented software tools, we introduced the Aurora Atlas, our HD Mapping system.

10. We hired our first VP of Hardware, Sandor Barna, who embraces our “first principles” approach in developing the hardware that powers the Aurora Driver.

11. We hosted over 150 amazing women at our first GirlGeek event where we discussed everything from our simulation tools to how to give and receive feedback.

12. We kickstarted a Women of Aurora blog series to showcase the innovative work from the fierce ladies at Aurora.

13. On Thanksgiving, our perception system picked up a couple of Aurora turkeys and their sizzlin’ dance moves in Palo Alto.

14. Who doesn’t love an Ugly Sweater party to get into the holiday spirit? No, seriously.

15. We were humbled to be named the Startup of the Year by the Consumer Technology Association, one of the hottest start-ups by LinkedIn and make Forbes’ AI Top 50 list!

We hope you’re all having a wonderful holiday break and we’ll see you in 2020!

❤

Everyone at Aurora