Autonomous trucking company Starsky Robotics has closed its doors after failing to secure additional funding in late 2019. Anyone that follows the AI industry or the autonomous vehicle space knows that not every startup was going to make it to the finish line. But the demise of one of the pioneering companies of the autonomous trucking space strikes a particular cord.
Here was a company working on a specific niche case that has gathered interest from both government and private companies, and actually succeeding at it. Starsky took a LiDAR-free approach to autonomous trucking – focusing instead on automotive-grade camera systems and radar. The company made headlines in 2019 when it became the first company to have an autonomous truck drive on a live highway.
And they’re working in the right space. Analysts at Allied Market Research are predicting the self-driving truck market to be worth about $1.7 billion by 2025.
So what went wrong?
Source: Starsky Robotics Failure Offers a Sobering Look at the State of AI | Design News