Aurora Innovation, a self-driving technology company co-founded by the former head of Google’s self-driving division, is mulling a sale to Apple or Microsoft.
Co-founder Chris Urmson recently acknowledged in an internal memo that the company could be taken private, or spin off some of its assets to respond to worsening market conditions. This comes despite the company raising $1.8 billion in cash after it went public last year after merging with a blank-check company.
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Urmson added in the memo that Aurora could consider acquiring companies in the sector with between $150 million and $300 million in cash while also aggressively cutting costs to boost its balance sheet. He also said that Aurora may consider freezing hiring, laying off employees, aggressively managing poor performers, zeroing-out corporate donations, and reorganizing the company. Aurora may also sell its lidar business for $500 million to $1 billion and could even sell a building or its test track. Employees could also be offered discounted shares in a bid to raise $25 million, Bloomberg reports.
While he said that Aurora wasn’t currently considering a sale, he noted that this could change with a competitive offer.
“Given our current stock price we should be an appealing target for any entity looking to own the future of automated driving,” he wrote. “Of potentially appealing landing places, there are only a few: Apple, Microsoft, or potentially a Tier 1,” referring to a large auto-parts supplier.”
The internal memo was labeled ‘board discussion pre-read’ but was accidentally sent to all staff at the company.
“We don’t expect that a conventional fundraising opportunity of sufficient scale to add a year of runway to the company will present itself over the next six months,” Urmson wrote. “While we continue to have ample runway, it’s important that we do what we can to extend that runway.”
