Nexen Tire’s venture capital invests in U.S. startup ANRA to secure mobility technology

[Courtesy of Nexon Tire]

SEOUL — The Silicon Valley-based venture capital of Nexen Tire, a tire maker based in South Korea, made a strategic investment in ANRA Technologies, an American startup that provides end-to-end drone operations and traffic management solutions for unmanned aircraft operators and airspace managers. Financial and other terms were not disclosed.

Nexen Tire said in a statement on December 20 that the investment signifies the full-blown beginning of its investment in new technology startups in the mobility field. It was the first investment by Next Century Ventures (NCV), a venture capital established by the tire maker in March to invest in mobility technologies such as automotive sensors, electric vehicles, and self-driving technologies. 

“We are paying attention to innovative technologies and businesses that will change the paradigm of mobility,” an unnamed NCV official was quoted as saying. Nexen Tire paid attention to ANRA’s uncrewed aircraft system traffic management (UTM) technology that acts as a traffic control tower for urban air transportation.

UTM is under development for autonomously controlled operations of unmanned aerial systems (UASs). UTM development will ultimately identify services, roles and responsibilities, information architecture, data exchange protocols, software functions, infrastructure, and performance requirements for enabling the management of low-altitude uncontrolled UAS operations.