PRESS RELEASE: The funds were secured from three leading investors: IP Group, Parkwalk Advisors and AXA XL (formerly XL Catlin).

The investment will be used to further accelerate Oxbotica's sustained growth, which it said has already seen it generate significant revenues from an international customer base.

Oxbotica's customers include businesses in sectors including mining, aerospace, automotive, construction and logistics.

Paul Newman, co-founder of Oxbotica, said: "The domain-agnostic design of our technology, as well as its independence from external infrastructure such as GPS, makes it uniquely versatile across a range of industries. This has allowed us to trade from day one, attracting a significant blue-chip customer base."

Founded in 2014 on research from Oxford University's Robotics Institute, Oxbotica's software uses computer vision, machine learning and artificial intelligence to enable vehicles to operate autonomously in any environment and on any terrain.

Its control system, Selenium, allows vehicles to sense their surroundings, while Caesium, Oxbotica's cloud-based fleet management system, can schedule and co-ordinate fleets of vehicles.

Graeme Smith, CEO of Oxbotica, said: "We are on a mission to bring autonomous software to the world's biggest markets. We have already seen extraordinary demand from a range of sectors and markets, with the successful deployment of our technology across a strong customer base over the previous four years.

"This injection of funds comes as we move the business into its next growth phase, enabling us to deliver our ambitious plans to scale our capabilities and international presence. To help us achieve this, we are very pleased to welcome our investors to the company and Jamie Vollbracht from IP Group on to our board."