Aurora's premier product, the Aurora Driver, can be used to autonomously operate passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles and heavy-duty trucks. Ford and VW announced this week that the companies would be ending their investment in Argo AI, a self-driving company with partnerships with Lyft and Walmart, and that the company would be shutting its doors. Some of Argo AI's around 2,000 employees would either be receiving offers from Ford, whose president and CEO said the company expected to make several hundred offers, or VW. The rest would be let go and receive severance packages that include insurance and two separate bonuses. Chris Urmson, the co-founder and CEO of Aurora, a self-driving company that has partnerships with Toyota and Uber, shared a note to Aurora's newsletter about the recent news.

A reliable fault management system is essential for safely operating autonomous vehicle fleets for commercial customers, helping to pave the way to full commercialization. With this in mind, self-driving tech firm Aurora Innovation Inc recently delivered its Beta 3.0 product update and demonstrated its fault management system – specifically the Aurora Driver's ability to detect system issues and respond by safely pulling over to the side of the road without any human involvement. The company says it achieved its milestone ahead of schedule, following its implementation on Aurora-powered trucks operating on public roads at highway speeds. "Any of a number of factors, from blown tires to damaged sensors, can compromise a vehicle while on the road," stated Sterling Anderson, Aurora co-founder and chief product officer. "Safely detecting and responding to those issues is essential for a reliable self-driving product operating at scale. Our fault management system lays the groundwork for safe autonomous operations without vehicle operators, chase vehicles or remote human fallback systems."

Aurora, the startup that was founded by the former head of Google's self-driving car project, has officially begun trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol "AUR." It's a significant milestone for the AV industry, which has struggled with overinflated expectations, missed deadlines, shuttered businesses, and a host of technological challenges. Last summer, Aurora announced that it would go public through a reverse merger with a special acquisition company, or SPAC, called Reinvent Technology Partners Y. Upon closing this deal, Aurora said it has $1.8 billion in "gross proceeds and cash in hand," which will help its quest to become a provider of self-driving hardware and software to companies in the trucking and ride-hailing industries. "This is a thrilling moment," said Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora, at an event celebrating the company's public listing. We're working to launch an incredible product in trucking.

The top-funded companies on the recently-released list of top 100 most-promising AI companies to watch from CBInsights, a market intelligence company based in New York, include companies offering autonomous driving software, an AI System on a chip, endpoint security with AI, and a drug discovery company. The list, selected from a base of 6,000 companies, is based on business relations, investor profile, news sentiment analysis, R&D activity, a proprietary scoring system, market potential, competitive landscape, team strength and tech novelty, according to an account in TechRepublic. "This year's cohort spans 18 industries, and is working on everything from climate risk to accelerating drug R&D," stated CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal. Companies on last year's list went on to raise $5.2 billion in additional financing, including 16 of over $100 million each. Some companies exited via merger or acquisition, IPOs or SPACS.

A self-driving car technology startup founded by former Google, Tesla and Uber executives said Thursday it secured $530 million in new funding that included a'significant' investment from Amazon. The funding round for Aurora Innovation led by Silicon Valley venture capital powerhouse Sequoia reportedly valued the startup launched just two years ago at more than $2.5 billion. While Aurora might not be well-known, the firm already has links to several big names in the industry, with research and development partnerships that include Byton, Hyundai, and Volkswagen. 'We are always looking to invest in innovative, customer-obsessed companies, and Aurora is just that,' Amazon said in response to an AFP inquiry. 'Autonomous technology has the potential to help make the jobs of our employees and partners safer and more productive, whether it's in a fulfillment center or on the road, and we're excited about the possibilities.' Aurora is developing the technology for autonomous vehicles, but leaving the making of cars to other companies and said in a blog post it wants to work alongside, rather than compete with, leading automakers.