On June 26th (local time), Amazon announced that it will take over the self-driving startup Zoox, which was founded in 2014. Jux is a company that has raised $1 billion in funding so far and aims to develop autonomous driving technologies, including vehicles, to provide full-stack solutions for dispatch services.
According to Amazon’s announcement, Zox continues to be an independent business, with current CEO Aicha Evans and CTO and co-founder Jesse Levinson in the role. Reportedly, the deal is worth $1.2 billion.
Jux aims to build software and AI that provide autonomous driving functions, and autonomous vehicles that fit the purpose from scratch. Jux has made some noticeable cost savings over the year. Amazon has been working on self-driving vehicle technology projects. It also includes last-mile delivery robots, such as a six-wheeled robot designed to carry small packages to customers’ homes. Amazon has invested in autonomous driving startup Aurora, and has also tested autonomous trucks with autonomous truck startup Embark.
According to Amazon, the acquisition of ZOX is not a direct focus on the Amazon freight transport business as it is aimed at supporting the realization of the vision for autonomous vehicles. However, technologies developed by ZOX, such as zero-emission vehicle technologies developed for the use of autonomous driving technology, can be easily converted to Amazon business. In addition, if ZOX focuses on dispatch services, Amazon may open up a whole new market. Related information can be found here .