Amazon pays $1.2 billion for self-driving startup Zoox
Zoox aimed to create its own self-driving software, vehicle, and taxi service. …
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Zoox, one of the most lavishly funded independent self-driving startups, has been acquired by Amazon, the companies announced on Friday.
Venture capitalists, hungry for a stake in the much-hyped self-driving industry, poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Zoox between 2016 and 2019. But as self-driving companies have failed to hit self-imposed milestones over the last couple of years, investor enthusiasm has cooled.
Zoox’s own plans were breathtakingly ambitious. The company planned to not only develop self-driving software, but to build its own vehicles and create a ride-hailing service. As recently as 2018, the company was aiming to launch a fully self-driving taxi service by 2020.
But like most other self-driving companies, Zoox has been forced to push back its timetable. Zoox fired CEO and co-founder Tim Kentley-Klay in 2018. That’s never a good sign for a startup that’s still years away from launching its first product. Zoox hired former Intel executive Aicha Evans to replace him in 2019.
In April, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Zoox laid off more than 100 safety drivers—though it said it hoped to bring them back once the pandemic was over. With cash dwindling and little appetite from venture capitalists
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