General Motor Co.’s (GM.N) autonomous-vehicle unit is acquiring crucial funding to help put self-driving cars on the road next year: a US$2.25 billion investment from an affiliate of Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp.

SoftBank Vision Fund will invest in GM Cruise Holdings LLC in two phases, with US$1.35 billion going in once Cruise autonomous vehicles are ready to be deployed next year. Once Softbank has completed the entire investment, it’ll own 19.6 per cent of GM Cruise, valuing the unit at US$11.5 billion. GM’s shares surged in early trading.

The deal joins two key players in the emerging technology of self-driving cars and services. GM intends to be the first automaker to bring autonomous cars to public roads at scale next year, positioning the company alongside Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo as among the leaders in a burgeoning field.“Our Cruise and GM teams have made tremendous progress over the past two years,” GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra said in a statement. “Teaming up with SoftBank adds an additional strong partner as we pursue our vision of zero crashes, zero emissions and zero congestion.”

An additional US$1.1 billion investment by GM will boost the total injection for Cruise to US$3.35 billion. The automaker’s shares climbed as much as 11 per cent in early trading.

The SoftBank Vision Fund, run by SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son, is the world’s biggest technology fund with about US$100 billion in contributions mostly from sovereign wealth funds in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The funds have been deployed so far on investments in Uber and chipmaker Nvidia Corp. and span businesses in activities from satellites to robots and even kale farming.

--With assistance from Molly Schuetz and David Westin