(Image source: Cruise)

Asian Tech Press (Mar. 21) -- The veteran automaker General Motors Co. (GM) announced Friday that it bought back SoftBank's stake in its self-driving unit Cruise for $2.1 billion.

GM said in an announcement that it will make an additional $1.35 billion investment in Cruise, replacing a previous commitment made by SoftBank Vision Fund 1 in 20218.

With the equity acquisition, GM will own 80% of Cruise, making it the absolute controlling shareholder. Other shareholders include Microsoft, WalMart and Honda Motor Co.

In May 2018, SoftBank Vision Fund 1 invested $2.25 billion to acquire an 11% stake in Cruise. Later, the fund invested another $300 million.

In February, Cruise became the first company to make such a deployment in a major U.S. city when it launched a driverless taxi service to the public in San Francisco.