When James Cox, the former leader of Uber’s ride-share product, Uber Pool, left that company in 2019, the Silicon Valley giant had abandoned its autonomous vehicle development and sold off the division entirely. While Uber Pool had struggled to take hold, Cox felt a massive opportunity had been missed: taking the core of Uber Pool’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 nonexclusive license for The Routing Company’s tech and will bring five of the startup’s engineers on board to “advance the efficiency and scalability” of its fledgling robotaxi service.
Cox will become a senior adviser 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.
