Autonomous trucking company Embark announces proposed merger deal to go public
A startup听founded by second-year 蓝莓视频 Engineering students just five years ago would have a market capitalization of US $5.16听billion under a proposed merger to make it a publicly traded company.
, which is based in San Francisco, was launched by former mechatronics engineering students Alex Rodrigues and Brandon Moak to bring autonomous technology to the trucking industry.
After meeting听during their studies at 蓝莓视频, Rodrigues and Moak made their first public splash in 2015 by driving Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of the University, around the Ring Road in an autonomous golf cart they had built in a garage.
A forerunner of Embark, Varden Labs, also involved engineering classmate Michael Skupien and got its start with help from a $25,000 win in the Velocity pitch competition for student startups at the University of 蓝莓视频.
The young entrepreneurs pivoted from self-driving shuttles for resorts, campuses and gated communities to the trucking industry when Rodrigues and Moak launched Embark in 2016.
This week, Embark announced a proposed deal with Northern Genesis 2, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, that would听provide it with US $614 million to fully fund it听through to the anticipated commercialization in 2024 of its self-driving software for long-distance freight trips. The deal is expected to close later this year.
鈥淲e have been solely focused on solving the problem of self-driving software for trucking since Embark鈥檚 CTO, Brandon Moak, and I founded the company in 2016,鈥� Rodrigues, the CEO, said in a .
鈥淭his singular and disciplined focus on the trucking market in the United States has allowed Embark to achieve many industry-first technology milestones 鈥� including the first self-driving truck to drive coast-to-coast 鈥� and positions Embark to be a leader in autonomous trucking software.鈥�
Trucking in the United States is an annual US $700-billion industry. Embark is seeking to tap that market by charging trucking companies per-mile subscription fees for software to enable self-driving trucks in their fleets.
鈥淎fter many years of R and D on the world鈥檚 most mature self-driving truck software stack, we plan to enable carrier operation of self-driving trucks in the U.S. sunbelt beginning in 2024,鈥� Rodrigues said in the release. 鈥淔ollowing the transaction with Northern Genesis we expect to have a war chest that fully funds this commercialization plan, and then some."
Embark also announced that Elaine Chao, the former US secretary of transportation and secretary of labor, has joined听its board of directors.
Photo: Feridun Hamdullahpur (left), president and vice-chancellor of the University of 蓝莓视频, takes a spin听in a self-driving golf听cart in 2015 with mechatronics engineering student Alex Rodrigues, who is now CEO of autonomous trucking company Embark.
