THE BIG STORY: Wrapping up at Ai4 in Las Vegas

Three days and one booth at The Venetian with our brand new wrapped Tesla, a six-compartment Smart Locker, and a ton of awesome conversations about what happens at the curb and those last 50 feet.

Ai4 brought thousands of attendees to Las Vegas this past week. With the many conversation we had, they all landed on the same question and it wasn't "does this work?" But with the Austin launch with Tso Chinese Takeout & Delivery, in place for validatity, the question was "when can we do this at our locations?"

Ben spoke on stage about the autonomous commerce opportunity and what the last 50 feet look like when the infrastructure is actually ready. He was also interviewed by Scifiction.com and it's not every day that an autonomous delivery infrastructure company ends up in a scifi publication, but honestly it tracks. The framing that landed hardest on stage and in every conversation at the booth: the vehicle arriving at your property is not the hard part anymore. The vehicle knowing where to go when it gets there, and the property owning that moment when the doors open, is where the work is.

Ella ran the Smart Locker demo and logged a ton of curious onlookers, including her own interview with Genzio. Thanks to Hamei and our collab with some awesome partners, Nuun and QMixers, everyone who stopped by the booth left fully hydrated. We're looking forward to the next show and the many updates we'll have to share by then.

‍The companies who were most interested at Ai4 are the same companies who have the most to gain from owning the last 50 feet of their customer relationship. The vehicle is a brand canvas and the locker is a fully customizable brand activation moment. The operators who move first in this window will define what autonomous delivery looks like for their customers for the next decade.

Image Source: Hamei Hamedi

‍

AV ROUND UP

Moove Just Raised $250 Million At A $2.1 Billion Valuation. Their CEO Called It An Infrastructure Race. Sound Familiar?
Moove closed a $250 million Series C led by Mubadala Investment Company and co-led by Woven Capital, Toyota's growth fund, and Ion Pacific. BlackRock, MUFG, Franklin Templeton, and Uber are also on the cap table. The company operates roughly 42,000 vehicles across 29 cities in 13 countries at $420 million ARR, and is already a leading third-party autonomous fleet manager for Waymo with operations live in Phoenix, Miami, and London incoming. Co-CEO Ladi Delano put it plainly: "Every major technology revolution becomes an infrastructure race. The internet required data centers. AI required compute. Autonomy requires fleets, charging, maintenance, data systems and 24/7 operations in every city." Autolane has been stating the same sentiment about the curb since we started.

Waymo co-CEO Dmitri Dolgov spoke on the final day of Ai4, but it's actually silence we should be expecting. The line that stuck: Waymo expects to be rolling around Vegas by next year’s Ai4! Another sign the AV market isn’t slowing down anytime soon. What will be different on the horizon for Waymo? They aren't planning on being as vocal about where their launches will be. His words "quiet launching" into new cities instead of the FOMO inducing city launches we've been accustomed to.

AS SEEN ON LINKEDIN

Ben has been on the move a lot lately. For the third time in the past year he headed back to Arkansas but before last year, he'd never been.

He posted about it last week and did not mince words. His challenge to the entrepreneurial and operator community reading this newsletter and his post: get outside your bubble, get uncomfortable, ask questions, and learn from people who are nothing like you. Ignore that advice and you will hit a hard ceiling on your professional success. Full stop.

Read Ben's Full Post Here

‍

THE LAST 50 FT

No new episode this week because our awesome team was holding it down in LV for Ai4. Have you caught up on all episodes? The back catalog is worth revisiting. Every conversation we have recorded holds up better as the industry moves faster around it. Catch up on anything you missed on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts.

All episodes on Spotify
All episodes on Youtube
All episodes on Apple Podcasts

THE AUTOCOMM BRIEF TAKE

Three days at Ai4 will do something to you, massive amounts of differentiating types of tech for optimization. All of it pointing at the same underlying shift: the systems that coordinate real-world operations are being rebuilt from scratch. The companies who walked up to our booth this week were not looking for a vendor, they were looking for a way into the next chapter of their customer relationship and a true partner.

Moove just raised $250 million on the thesis that autonomy is an infrastructure race. At Ai4 this week, we watched that context walk through a booth in Las Vegas and ask one question: "When can we do this?"

The answer is sooner than you think.

The lane is changing. Let's make sure it leads somewhere worth going. 🏁

coverage.goautolane.com
Subscribe to the Autonomous Commerce Brief: goautolane.com/newsletter-signup