Apple To Complete Acquisition Of Self-driving Startup Drive.ai

According to a report published by Axios, Apple has recently completed the acquisition of a startup company called Drive.ai.

As its name suggests, Drive.ai is a California-based company which is involved in developing autonomous car technology. The company reportedly uses artificial intelligence to make accurate self-driving systems for vehicles.

While the numbers of the deal were not disclosed, Drive.ai’s value was once calculated at around $200 million prior to the date of the purchase. Apart from buying the company, Apple hails a number of former engineers from Drive.ai. Note that Apple reportedly ceased its own operations.

As per a report from Information earlier this month, the tech giant showed its interest in Drive.ai, while the main reason was supposed to be looking for the innovative engineering talent of the platform. The San Francisco Chronicle said Tuesday that the startup cited a filing with state authorities to announce its plan on shutting down the business and cut off its current employee base by the end of this month. Apple somehow kept one jump ahead of the news as its acquisition is already finalized.

Talking about the ability of Drive.ai, there’s one word – unique. While a lot of manufacturers start building their autonomous cars from the outlining stage, the company even makes “kits” to transform a diesel car into a self-driving one. Meanwhile, in Apple’s side, the tech giant has been putting effort on making several homegrown automotive products, including investing heavily on self-driving car technology.

Prior to this, the startup had raised approximately $77 million in funding, with investors comprising of Nvidia GPU Ventures and New Enterprise Associates – according to Crunchbase.

Up to now, Apple hasn’t made any response to a request for comment about the deal.