Argo, founded in 2016 by Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, is now jointly controlled by Volkswagen and Ford Motor Co , which made an initial investment in Argo shortly after it was founded.
German automaker Volkswagen AG has closed its $2.6 billion investment in Argo AI, the Pittsburgh-based self-driving startup disclosed in a blog post on Tuesday.
Argo, founded in 2016 by Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, is now jointly controlled by Volkswagen and Ford Motor Co , which made an initial investment in Argo shortly after it was founded.
Details of the Volkswagen investment, which does not include an agreement to purchase $500 million worth of Argo stock from Ford, was announced last July.
Volkswagen's agreement includes the transfer to Argo of its Munich-based Autonomous Intelligent Driving unit, which boosts Argo's employment to more than 1,000, according to Salesky.
Last week, Volkswagen disclosed that its supervisory board had approved several projects in a multibillion-dollar alliance with Ford that also was announced last July.
Ford created Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC in 2018, pledging to invest $4 billion until 2023 and had sought outside investors to help share the spiraling cost of developing autonomous vehicles.
