Comma.ai gets 3.1M for scrappy self-driving

Editor's Note: Our annual Vator Splash Spring 2016 conference is around the corner on May 12, 2016 at the historic Scottish Rite Center in Oakland. Speakers include Nigel Eccles (CEO & Co-founder, FanDuel), Andy Dunn (Founder & CEO, Bonobos), Mitch Kapor (Founder, Kapor Center for Social Impact); Founders of NextDoor, Handy, TubeMogul; Investors from Khosla Ventures, Javelin Venture Partners, Kapor Capital, Greylock, DFJ, IDG, IVP and more. Chris Dixon, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), announced this week that his firm has led a 3.1 million round in Comma.ai, a scrappy startup developing self-driving technology using artificial intelligence. The most fascinating thing about this new funding is that the person behind Comma has nothing to do with Apple, Google, General Motors (GM), Lyft, Tesla, Uber, or any of the other big-name technology and automotive companies that have typically dominated the self-driving car narrative over the past couple years. Instead, the head of Comma is George Hotz, a hacker who rose to prominence at the age of 17 for becoming the first person to unlock the iPhone so it could be used on any wireless carrier.