When James Cox, the former leader of Uber’s ride-share product, UberPool, left that company in 2019, the Silicon Valley giant had abandoned its autonomous vehicle development and sold off the division entirely. While UberPool had struggled to take hold, Cox felt a massive opportunity had been missed: taking the core of UberPool’s tech and applying it to robotaxis.
For the last five years Cox has instead been running a small startup called The Routing Company, which helps transit agencies match riders with vehicles quickly and cheaply. In that time The Routing Company has helped arrange 3 million trips across 13 U.S. states and five countries.
But now, The Routing Company has landed its first robotaxi client: Zoox.
The Routing Company announced Wednesday that it has struck a deal with the Amazon-owned robotaxi company. Zoox will purchase a non-exclusive license for The Routing Company’s tech, and also bring five of the startup’s engineers on board to “advance the efficiency and scalability” of its fledgling robotaxi service.
Cox himself will become a senior advisor to Mike White, Zoox’s chief product officer. But the former Uber executive will continue on as CEO of The Routing Company. Any new tech that those engineers develop inside Zoox will stay with the Amazon-owned company. The companies declined to disclose the terms.
The deal is the latest example of how robotaxi companies are increasingly looking outward for help as they deploy real-world fleets. Waymo has recently announced a string of operational partnerships with companies like Uber and Avis. Last year, delivery startup Nuro outsourced its simulation work to Toyota-backed Foretellix in a bid to cut R&D costs.
“I’m hopeful that this deal enables us to scale the positive impacts of our technology within what will be a very fast expansion in the robotaxi space, …