Amazon in a blog post yesterday announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Zoox, a California-based self-driving startup started in 2014. Founded by Jesse Levinson and Tim Kentley Klay, Zoox has raised around $955 million across four funding rounds from investors including Grok Ventures, Blackbird Ventures, Lux Capital, Thomas Tull and Threshold.
As per the statement published by Amazon, Aicha Evans, CEO and Jesse Levinson, co-founder & CTO of Zoox will continue to lead the team.
Commenting on the development, Aicha said,
“This acquisition solidifies Zoox’s impact on the autonomous driving industry. We have made great strides with our purpose-built approach to safe, autonomous mobility, and our exceptionally talented team is working every day to realize that vision. We now have an even greater opportunity to realize a fully autonomous future.”
Following the news, Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and co-founder of Tesla took on the Twitter to bash Jeff Bezos – calling him a Copycat.
One fact that backs Bezos is that, Zoox’s vehicles are designed for ride-hailing, unlike Tesla’s which are targetted to customers directly – as highlighted by Business Insider.
