TIER IV, Inc.
"Democratizing autonomous driving"
Tokyo autonomous-driving company founded in December 2015 by Shinpei Kato, creator of Autoware; employed 404 people as of May 2026.
TIER IV, Inc. is a Japanese autonomous-driving technology company headquartered in Kitashinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, founded in December 2015 by chief executive Shinpei Kato, who had developed the original Autoware software as a researcher at Nagoya University.
TIER IV created Autoware, an open-source, ROS-based software stack for autonomous driving first released publicly in 2015, and co-founded the non-profit Autoware Foundation in 2018 to govern the project going forward. Around Autoware, the company sells three product lines: Pilot.Auto, a reference autonomous-driving platform providing baseline components for self-driving vehicles; Edge.Auto, a hardware reference platform combining sensors and automotive-grade computers to move projects from prototype to production; and Web.Auto, a cloud-based DevOps platform for managing software updates, fleet data, and simulation at scale. The software fuses cameras, lidar, radar, IMU, and GNSS data, and has been used in driverless bus and shuttle trials in Japan.
The company has raised more than 38 billion yen in venture funding, including a 17.5 billion yen Series A round in August 2020 and Series B funding of 12.1 billion yen in July 2022 plus an 8.5 billion yen extension in May 2024. TIER IV employed 404 people as of May 2026.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
Pilot.Auto
Scalable autonomous driving reference platform providing core system capabilities and designs for cost-effective AV development.
Web.Auto
Cloud-native DevOps platform for autonomous driving data pipelines, software management, and simulation workflows.
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Contact TIER IV, Inc.
WEBSITE
https://tier4.jp/en/PHONE
+81 3 4520 2315HEADQUARTERS
Japan
Company Facts
Founded
2015
Primary Role
Software/Algorithm
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Asia-Pacific
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
-
Funding Total
-
Keywords
- TIER IV
- Inc.
- autonomous-driving
- open-source
- autoware
- level-4
- ros
- sensor-fusion
- av-software
- self-driving
- Autonomous Vehicle / UGV
- Software/Algorithm
- Autonomous Vehicle/UGV
- Control & Software
- Cloud & Data
- Logistics & Supply Chain
- Special / Extreme Environments
- Defense & Security
- Manufacturing
- Automotive
