MOTOR Ai Secures $20M to Drive Europe’s Vision for Safe, Explainable Autonomy

MOTOR Ai, a pioneer in neuroscience-based autonomous driving systems, has raised $20 million in seed funding to accelerate deployment of its Level 4 certified, explainable AI driving technology on public roads. The round was led by Segenia Capital és a eCAPITAL, with participation from several high-net-worth individuals in Germany.

With this new capital, MOTOR Ai plans to finalize regulatory type-approval and expand its public road deployments across Germany, starting with safety-supervised operations that will transition to full autonomy in 2026.

A Made-in-Germany Answer to the Global Autonomy Race

While much of the world’s autonomous vehicle industry has focused on massive data ingestion and opaque black-box models, MOTOR Ai has taken a radically different approach — one rooted in cognitive neuroscience and explainability. Founded in 2017 by CEO Roy Uhlmann és a CTO Adam Bahlke, the Berlin-based company has built its entire autonomy stack in-house, with full alignment to Europe’s regulatory, ethical, and safety frameworks.

At the heart of MOTOR Ai’s system is active inference, a model from neuroscience that mimics human reasoning by making structured, traceable decisions rather than relying on pre-trained responses. This architecture allows the AI to generalize and make safe decisions even in rare or unforeseen situations — a breakthrough that directly addresses the “edge case” problem plaguing many current systems.

“Our solution meets key requirements for transparency and traceability of autonomous driving decisions, as required by authorities,” mondott Uhlmann. “That clearly distinguishes us from U.S. providers and optimally complies with European regulatory expectations.”

Built for Europe’s Safety and Compliance-First Standards

MOTOR Ai’s full-stack system has already been proven under real-world conditions, operating on German public roads with a safety driver. It is one of the only systems designed from day one to meet the continent’s highest regulatory thresholds:

• ISO 26262 (ASIL-D)
• UNECE approval
• EU 2022/1426 rendelet
• Germany’s AFGBV (Autonomous Vehicles Approval and Operation Ordinance)
• GDPR and EU AI Act compliance
• Forthcoming Cyber Resilience Act

This meticulous alignment with policy and safety requirements enables MOTOR Ai to proceed toward full certification with confidence — and without needing to retrofit or rework its software stack.

“MOTOR Ai has built a solution that is not only technologically differentiated but fundamentally aligned with how Europe thinks about infrastructure and public safety,” said Michael Janßen, General Partner at Segenia Capital.

From Urban Roads to Rural Mobility: A Broader Vision

Unlike many players focused solely on urban robotaxi scenarios, MOTOR Ai is positioning its technology as “autonomy as infrastructure.” Its vehicles are designed to support public transportation in rural and suburban areas, where flexible, on-demand service models can fill crucial mobility gaps.

Főbb jellemzői a következők:

• Ride-pooling and on-demand scheduling
• Flexible, virtual pickup and drop-off stops
• Inclusive support for passengers with disabilities
• Scalable deployment across districts

By integrating seamlessly into existing public transit systems, MOTOR Ai's fleet aims to boost both mobility and equity — enabling self-determined, sustainable travel across diverse communities.

Technical Excellence Rooted in German Research

MOTOR Ai's team of over 40 specialists from 13 countries has engineered every component in-house. Their approach to artificial intelligence is not a bolt-on enhancement but a complete, certifiable cognitive system that mirrors the decision-making logic of human drivers.

Its capabilities include:

• Észlelés: Full sensor stack including LIDAR, radar, camera, microphone, GPS, and ultrasound
• Fusion érzékelő: Real-time environmental understanding through multi-sensor input
• Tervezés és döntéshozatal: Reproducible logic based on human cognitive models

This tight vertical integration gives the company full control over performance, safety, and future scalability.

“This ‘Made in Germany’ development reduces inter-dependencies while strengthening Europe’s ability to operate in critical innovative technology," mondott Lucas Merle, Principal at eCAPITAL.

Scaling Autonomy with Transparency and Trust

MOTOR Ai’s vision for the future of autonomy is not centered around mystery or machine dominance — it is about clarity, trust, and rigorous engineering. With its technology already tested and compliant on public roads, and with certification expected by 2026, the company is now poised to scale across Europe’s complex transportation landscape.

“We don’t think the future of autonomy in Europe should be a mystery,” mondott Uhlmann. “It should be measurable, inspectable, and designed to earn public trust. That’s what we’ve been building, and now we’re ready to scale it.”

As autonomous vehicle development accelerates globally, MOTOR Ai’s approach highlights a growing divide between data-heavy black-box systems and explainable, certifiable alternatives. By grounding its technology in cognitive neuroscience and aligning it with European regulatory frameworks, the company is contributing to a broader shift toward transparency, safety, and legal accountability in autonomy. With new funding in place and type approval anticipated by 2026, MOTOR Ai’s progress may serve as a blueprint for how autonomous driving can scale responsibly within highly regulated environments.