Starsky Robotics

What did it do?

Starsky Robotics developed a hybrid driverless lorry system that combined autonomous driving on the motorway with remote human control for tricky manoeuvres and for the first and last miles. Experienced lorry drivers managed the vehicles remotely from an office rather than from the cab. The company became known as the first start-up to test a lorry with nobody in the cab on a public road.

Why did it shut down?

After its 2018 Series A the company could not find new funding. According to a former executive speaking to FreightWaves, a key investor pulled out of a new round at the last minute in November 2019, and the cash problems began. That same month more than 85 per cent of staff were laid off and the lorry fleet set up to finance the autonomy work was shut down. Sale talks with competitors also came to nothing. Co-founder Seltz-Axmacher attributed the closure to waning investor interest in autonomous vehicles, high capital requirements and slower-than-expected technical progress across the industry.

The story

In June 2019 a lorry covered a 9.4-mile stretch of public motorway with not a single person in its cab. The first and last few hundred metres of the journey were driven remotely by an operator sitting 200 miles away in Jacksonville, Florida. With this run, Starsky Robotics went on record as the start-up that carried out the first unmanned public-road test of a driverless lorry.

The company was founded in San Francisco in 2016 by Stefan Seltz-Axmacher and Kartik Tiwari. Its approach differed from its rivals': the lorry would drive itself on the motorway, while complex manoeuvres and the first and last miles would be handled remotely by experienced drivers sitting in an office. Seltz-Axmacher had told FreightWaves that he did not believe a supercomputer could be smarter than a lorry driver. In 2017 it raised $5 million from Y Combinator, Sam Altman, Trucks VC and Data Collective, followed in March 2018 by a $16.5 million Series A led by Shasta Ventures. To fund its technology the company also hauled freight with its own lorry fleet, and in 2019 it worked with the digital freight broker Loadsmart on fully autonomous shipments in Texas.

The break came in November 2019. According to former senior executive Paul Schlegel, speaking to FreightWaves, a key investor pulled out of a new round at the last minute. That same month more than 85 per cent of staff were laid off and the lorry fleet was shut down; investors had been worried about the financial sustainability of the haulage arm. An internal memo in mid-December said the money would last only until the end of January. Sale talks were held with rivals such as Embark, Cruise, Waymo and TuSimple, but no buyer emerged. By March 2020 the company had sold its remaining assets, including its patents on remote vehicle operation.

Seltz-Axmacher announced the closure in a widely read post on Medium. He attributed it to waning investor interest in autonomous vehicles, the sector's high capital requirements and technical progress that was slower than expected across the whole industry. Starsky became an often-cited example of the mismatch between deep-tech development timelines and venture capital cycles.

The lesson of this story is that a correct thesis also has to be funded at the right time. If the appetite for capital fades before the technology is ready, even the most original approach cannot make it to the next round.

Lessons for founders

• If you are building deep tech, set your product timeline against venture capital cycles; keep enough cash on hand to survive a single delayed round.
• Do not plan a round that hinges on one investor's decision; keep parallel conversations going in case of a last-minute withdrawal.
• A side business set up to fund the core technology adds to the burden if it is not profitable in its own right; measure this early.

Sources

1. Starsky Robotics (Wikipedia)
2. Starsky Robotics Downsizes (FreightWaves, 2020-02-24)
3. Starsky Robotics raises a $16.5 million Series A for its self-driving trucks (TechCrunch, 2018-03-08)
4. Starsky Robotics Unleashes Its Truly Driverless Truck in Florida (Wired, 2018-06-01)
5. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q48970715
6. Wikipedia (English)

This section is compiled from public sources (Wikidata, news archives and company announcements). Figures are given as they appear in those sources; unknown fields are left blank. If you spot a mistake in an entry, you can send us a correction.

Is something in this entry wrong? Request a correction → Method