The Japanese company SoftBank is investing 920 million dollars (713.73million pounds) in self-driving delivery vans from the American startup Nuro. Thanks to the investment, the company is valued at 2.7 billion dollars (2.09 billion pounds).

The company reports on Twitter that a Softbank investment fund is investing money in the startup. Softbank is a large Japanese company empire that deals with communication, internet and robotics.

Nuro has been working since a year on a small self-driving van that can deliver parcels, such as meals, groceries or orders from web shops.

The company was organised three years ago by two former employees of Waymo: the subsidiary of Google that also works on self-driving cars. Last year, Nuro raised 92 million dollars (71.37 million pounds) in investments.

Last summer, Nuro announced a collaboration with the American supermarket chain, Kroger, to set up a grocery delivery service with Toyota’s self-propelled Prius.