Phantom Auto, a distant driving startup that launched seven years in the past amid the excitement of autonomous automobile expertise, is shutting down after failing to safe new funding, TechCrunch has realized.
Phantom Auto, which had raised a complete of $95 million, developed a teleoperation platform that allowed a distant driver, typically situated hundreds of miles away, to function a automobile if wanted. The corporate attracted a mixture of backers, together with angel buyers and early-stage VCs reminiscent of Bessemer Enterprise Companions and Maniv Mobility, personal fairness agency InfraBridge and strategic buyers reminiscent of ArcBest and ConGlobal. The startup’s final elevate was $25 million in 2023.
The startup had come near securing one other spherical of funding, nevertheless it fell by means of unexpectedly, in keeping with a supply who spoke on situation of anonymity. At its top, the startup employed about 120 individuals. Phantom Auto, which had lower employees final yr, employed just a little greater than 100 individuals as of this week. It was based mostly in South San Francisco.
Phantom Auto’s demise is the newest in a protracted line of startups that popped up because the autonomous automobile expertise business gained consideration and funding from buyers. That buzz, which led to billion-dollar acquisitions and valuations within the business, pale as optimistic timelines to deploy robotaxis and self-driving autos slipped. A wave of consolidation, shut downs and pivots adopted. The tough fundraising atmosphere up to now 18 months brought on one other wave of closures.
Phantom Auto founder and CEO Shai Magzimof posted Tuesday on LinkedIn that the corporate was ceasing operations.
“After seven years of efforts to reshape the future of physical labor at Phantom Auto, we’ve made the tough decision to close operations. there are various factors contributing to this, including market conditions and insufficient funding,” he wrote. “I express gratitude to our employees, investors, customers, partners, and all who’ve joined us on this journey. these times are challenging, but my primary concern is our team. We possess exceptional talent now seeking opportunities in the job market. I’m committed to providing references for our employees. personally, I’ll be taking a pause to unwind and think about the next steps.”
Sources instructed TechCrunch that the corporate had traction on the client deployment aspect. Nevertheless, it was nonetheless reliant on exterior funding to maintain operations going and ultimately to scale.
Phantom Auto was based in 2017 and initially centered on making use of its teleops expertise to autonomous autos on public roadways reminiscent of robotaxis and self-driving vans. The corporate’s govt group quickly realized that even with its expertise, large-scale industrial deployments of driverless autos on public roads was a long time away.
Phantom Auto pivoted in 2019 and began buying its distant driving system to logistics, particularly forklifts and yard vans that don’t have any autonomy in addition to autonomous sidewalk delivery robots. All of those autos function at low pace and, except supply bots, are in confined environments. The corporate had buyer agreements with Maersk, CJ Logistics, ArcBest and autonomous sidewalk bot startup Serve Robotics.
