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Daimler makes another drone investment. 16 questions on self-driving. 2016 auto tech funding recap.

Hockey stick

Welcome back!

As we look back on 2016, it truly was a turning point for auto tech as driverless vehicles and the promise of new mobility paradigms went mainstream.

This is highlighted by the spike in interest visible in our Trends tool, which mines millions of media articles to track emerging tech.

Breaking down funding data for full-year 2016, it’s clear that investors were buying in as total financing and deals to auto tech startups shattered annual records.

Companies in the field secured over a billion dollars in collective capital for the first time. As with many tech ecosystems US startups led the way, but Canadian and Israeli companies saw their fair share of deals as well.

P.S. For an in-depth panel on autonomous driving and mobility, be sure to tune into the livestream of our CB Insights Innovation Summit at 2pm PT later today.

The full schedule includes coverage of healthcare and insurance, as well as keynotes by Scott Belsky of Benchmark and Mark Suster of Upfront.

Have a great rest of the week.

Kerry
@kerrygwu

This report was created with data from CB Insights’ emerging technology insights platform, which offers clarity into emerging tech and new business strategies through tools like:

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