Why investors are pumping money into risky self-driving startups
Self-driving car startup Aurora is ready to go public in a reverse merger with Reinvent Technology Partners Y, a special acquisition company (SPAC).
The merger will give Aurora an infusion of cash to develop autonomous trucks and, later, self-driving passenger cars.
Going public is not the norm for companies that don’t have a working and profitable business model. And what makes Aurora’s reverse IPO even more odd is that it comes at a time that the self-driving car industry is struggling with missed deadlines, shuttered projects, unsettled technical challenges, growing cash-burn rates, and loss of public trust.
The race to pump cash in self-driving car startups can either indicate confidence in a technological breakthrough in the near term, or a desperate run to keep operations afloat until someone figures out how to overcome one of the greatest challenges of artificial intelligence.
Read the full analysis on TechTalks.
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