Ridecell makes deal for Auro shuttle firm
San Francisco’s Ridecell, a “mobility” company that focuses on new ways to get people from point A to B, is plunging into the world of autonomous vehicles.
Ridecell has acquired Santa Clara’s Auro Robotics, maker of an autonomous shuttle that’s been transporting students and faculty at Santa Clara University’s campus since late last year. The all-stock deal, terms of which were not disclosed, means Ridecell will provide self-driving shuttles for closed campuses that can set their own traffic rules.
“We want to get autonomous shuttles into private environments — places like universities, theme parks, resorts, business parks, retirement communities — where the regulations will allow them to cruise around and pick up people,” said Mark Thomas, Ridecell vice president. Auro’s 10 employees will join Ridecell’s 100-person staff.
In addition, Ridecell is now offering its fleetmanagement software for companies with robot vehicles to handle maintenance, repairs and other issues. Thomas said it has one taker so far, whose name it cannot disclose.
“Companies that have been training their cars on how to drive can use our software to train the cars on what to do if something goes wrong,” Thomas said. “We will help them automate their routine and emergency maintenance, to keep the cars on the road, cleaned and maintained.”
The need will be acute since, obviously, autono-
mous cars will not have drivers to keep an eye on things.
“We’ll need to build in all the intelligence to keep the fleet in top condition and handle what arises,” Thomas said. “If there’s a breakdown, if the weather is bad, we can orchestrate all the people needed to pick up the car and take it to its next destination.”
Ridecell already addresses such issues for vehicles used for car-sharing, the industry term for short-term flexible rentals.
Its car-sharing clients include BMW’s ReachNow service in Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Brooklyn; AAA’s Gig Car Share in Oakland and Berkeley; and Volkswagen’s Omni car-sharing service in Poland. In addition, its software underlies shuttle services for various campuses, including UCSF and UC Berkeley.
With BMW, which invested in Ridecell through its BMW i-Ventures fund, Ridecell helped develop a hybrid car-sharing/ridehailing service in Seattle. The companies found that car-sharing has strongest demand during the day when people want to go on errands, while in the evening they prefer to be driven. So the ReachNow cars are available for daytime rentals, and at night, hired drivers provide ride-hailing through a service called ReachNow Ride that competes with Uber and Lyft.
Ridecell, founded in 2009, has $11.4 million in venture capital. Auro, founded in 2013, had raised $2.4 million.
Auro’s three founders met in their native India where they hatched the idea to focus on low-speed autonomous shuttles. They were accepted into the prestigious Y Combinator incubator, and lived and worked together in a Sunnyvale house as they developed and built their first shuttle.