Volvo Group Venture Capital, the corporate investment unit of Swedish vehicle manufacturer Volvo Group, has invested in US-based autonomous mobility software firm Apex.AI.

Financial details related to the investment were not revealed.

The Swedish company plans to develop a safety-certified software framework for autonomous systems.

Set up in 2017, Apex.AI is developing an automotive-grade version of Robot Operating System (ROS) used for research related to robotics and autonomous systems.

The company aims to support the production of different autonomous vehicle projects with this ROS version, which is expected to receive the functional safety standard ISO 26262 certification.

Volvo Group Venture Capital investment director Dan Tram said: “Apex.AI has a promising product offering with important commercial deployment potential for autonomous systems.”

Volvo Group believes that this investment will not significantly affect its earnings or financial position.

The company has been involved in the development of self-driving vehicles by partnering with multiple different companies.

This June, Volvo Group and chipmaker Nvidia partnered to develop self-driving vehicles for industries such as public and transport, construction, mining and forestry.

Volvo Group will use Nvidia Drive’s end-to-end autonomous driving platform to train, test and deploy self-driving AI vehicles.

Volvo Cars also teamed up with American ride-hailing firm Uber to unveil the new self-driving Volvo XC90 SUV in Washington, US.

It follows an agreement signed by both Uber and Volvo Cars in 2016 to collectively develop several autonomous car prototypes.

In March, Volvo Buses started a trial of a full size autonomous electric bus in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.