Ford has acquired Palo Alto, California-based Autonomic.ai, which is building infrastructure for smart mobility applications and services.
Autonomic.ai’s COO Amar Varma and CEO Sunny Madra are known for being the Toronto-based founders of mobile development shop Xtreme Labs, which was acquired by Pivotal for $65 million in 2013. According to Reuters, the move is part of Ford’s strategy to expand its ride services.
Madra will join Ford to run Ford X, which will work to develop new transport businesses internally. While Autonomic will operate as a separate business entity, it is part of Ford’s Smart Mobility subsidiary, which is testing ways to generate revenue from transportation services and connected vehicles.
Over the last year, Autonomic has worked with Ford in developing the Transportation Mobility Cloud, which will work to route self-driving cars, manage large-scale fleets, and help people plan transit journeys.
“We want to work with transportation stakeholders of all kinds — automakers, large-scale fleet operators, public transit operators and communities everywhere — to develop the mobility platform for the cities of tomorrow,” said Madra in a blog post, predicting that by 2019, Transportation Mobility Cloud will be the largest connected vehicle cloud globally.
