EV maker Rivian has acquired Third Dimension, a U.K. startup founded by veterans of the gaming and autonomous vehicle industries that uses AI to turn images and videos into lifelike 3D worlds.
📌 The Core Development
Rivian isn’t getting into gaming, but it does want to leverage Third Dimension’s technology to turn real-world data into 3D worlds that can accelerate the development of its advanced driver-assistance features and the self-driving system for the robotaxis it plans to supply to Uber .
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The 15-person team at Third Dimension, most of whom are based in the U.K., will be absorbed into Rivian’s autonomy and AI team led by James Philbin. The acquisition also gives Rivian an opportunity to expand its AI hub in London, Philbin said in an exclusive interview.
🔍 Background & Sector Context
Third Dimension, which was founded by CEO Tolga Kart and Piotr Sokólski in 2024, raised $7 million in seed funding from venture capital firms, including Abstract Ventures, MVP, Soma Capital, and Solari Capital. While the company’s technology was built to speed up video game development, the founders saw other potential applications, including defense and autonomous vehicles.
Now, under Rivian, they’ll be focused on automated driving. Today, Rivian offers “Universal Hands-Free” driving software that lets drivers take their hands off the wheel on highways, while still watching the road. The company plans to, by the end of the year, release a version of the software that can handle the entire drive through surface streets and highways without touching the wheel, although the driver will still have to supervise and be ready to take over.
📊 Industry & Real-World Impact
Rivian is also working toward full autonomy, which it will deploy in the robotaxi versions of its R2 SUV that will be available on the Uber app in 2028.
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🔮 Strategic Outlook & What Lies Ahead
“The team is excited to be able to focus on one problem,” Kart told TechCrunch in an interview. “I think as a small company, having to serve many, many different masters is very hard, and so we’re very excited to come work on a problem that has such an amount of scale, where our technology makes a true difference.”
Simulation is a critical tool for autonomous vehicle developers, who use it to train and validate self-driving systems. Historically, these simulators were built on rendering or video game engines and often relied on synthetic data. These virtual environments might look like the real world, but a gap between the two remains, Kart said. The workaround typically requires feeding the simulators ever-larger amounts of data in hopes of closing that quality gap.
