The co-founders of Argo AI have announced the creation of a new autonomous driving company. Now names and details have been revealed.
Stack AV, as it is called, will be based in Pittsburgh and have received financial support from one of the world’s leading investors for start-ups: SoftBank.
Stack AV, a 150-employee company led by CEO Bryan Salesky, President Peter Rander and CTO Brett Browning, has tapped Japanese multinational investment holding firm SoftBank Group as its largest investor. The startup did not disclose the size of SoftBank’s investment. However, there are insiders who talk about hundreds of millions of dollars.
Originally founded as an autonomous trucking business, Stack will address the safety and supply chain challenges affecting the road-based transportation and logistics industry, among other challenges related to efficiency, driver shortages and vehicle downtime.
In addition to the use of autonomous driving, the focus of this is primarily on AI. Stack’s focus on AV solutions for trucks and financial backing from a multinational investment firm are two of the biggest differences between Stack and the failed one Argo AI, which halted its passenger vehicle-focused AV developments in October 2022 after its two largest investors, automakers ford and Volkswagen, announced that they would no longer finance the project and would press ahead with their own AV developments. Ford has since formed a subsidiary based at Argo’s former Strip District headquarters called Latitude AI to drive much of this work.
Stack is expected to move into an office space in Pittsburgh. There is no official address yet. The company said its employees work in 15 states.