INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to different outcomes for different businesses
While some have stood to benefit (think Zoom, Facebook and bidet startup Tushy), others have been hit hard and laid off employees in order
But there are some that fall somewhere in the middle
Autonomous driving startup Voyage believes it is not explicitly benefiting, but it not at risk of going under either, says CEO Oliver
Cameron.
Cameron response to the pandemic centers around three areas: passenger operations, technology and company-building
While operations have halted, Voyage is moving forward with its technology and has shifted the company to a 100% remote-work environment
With a post-pandemic world in mind, Cameron envisions more demand for autonomous vehicles.
Before COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Voyage
had already paused its consumer operations, which primarily serve seniors in retirement communities.
We did that because, obviously, seniors
are disproportionately impacted by this and it would be horrific for Voyage to be patient zero in the retirement community and this is
something we were operating out of an abundance of caution,& says Cameron
&So we paused our operations from a consumer service perspective very early and we won''t open those up for quite some time
It tough to say at what particular point because it seems like the consensus is it will be a progressive opening up of the economy, meaning
some populations will be fine to go back to work and there will be some that are significantly impacted, like seniors, that are effectively
locked down for an extended period of time
So we&re not in a rush to get that back up and running until we hear from the community itself that it OK to do that.
Despite the hiatus in
operations, Voyage is still running simulations and using a variety of automated testing tools to determine if it is making progress
For example, Voyage uses automation to test for regressions in perception
A challenge in perception is false positives and false negatives — that is, seeing something that isn''t there or not seeing something
that is there, Cameron explains.
And we have this pretty cool tool that enables us to monitor with each perception release if we are seeing
regressions based on perception performance in the past,& he says
&We don''t need to be there in the real world to see that
We can just tell instantaneously if that is the case.
Voyage also has a way of testing different permutations of environments to see how its
planning and prediction software can handle different scenarios
Then, of course, it uses more traditional simulation tools provided by Applied Intuition.
But we don''t fool ourselves into thinking that
simulation or automated testing makes up for all that real-world testing brought to the table,& Cameron says
&It doesn''t, and there definitely going to be some time that we have to spend once we do get back on the road, fixing issues that we just
couldn''t find as a result of not being on the road.
From a company and personnel standpoint, Voyage has also transitioned into a
It hasn''t been a distraction, according to Cameron, since Voyage embraced remote work some time ago.
We&re lucky that we are able to
weather the storm,& Cameron says
&We&ve got a good chunk of cash in the bank and, luckily, we raised at a reasonable time — at the end of last year — so we&re going to
be fine.
Many companies in the tech ecosystem have been forced to lay off employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic
Voyage, however, will seemingly not be one of them
As Cameron noted, Voyage raised a $31 million round in September.
There been a lot of discussion about great companies will weather this and
the companies that were going to die anyway will die
I&m sure there is some truth to that, but some of it is just luck
Some of it is that you raised at a time you didn''t know was important, but turned out to be quite important
And, you know, our burn has always been low compared to others in the space
For us, we&ve always been frugal, and it turns out that quite important in a pandemic.
Despite Voyage use of simulation, its automated
testing and healthy bank account, the pandemic is still a major complication.
I think it got to set everyone back,& Cameron says
&I think there is a spectrum and there are companies that stand to benefit from this
We&ve seen with Zoom they stand to benefit from this
Remote working tools, they stand to benefit from this
And then you go all the other way to the end of the spectrum — those that are actively impacted like airlines, ridesharing, scooters and I
believe we&re somewhere in the middle
The reason we&re in the middle is because in a post-virus world, I&m pretty sure behaviors change
It TBD on how long those behaviors last, but it clear that behaviors are going to change.
In that world where behaviors change, Cameron bets
that driverless cars will add more value than traditional ride-hailing services
In a world where people may still be hesitant to get into a car with strangers, a driverless car would mitigate those fears, he says.
In the
short term, everyone impacted,& he says
&There a slowdown in everything
In the medium and long term, we&ll be fine because I believe the demand is still there for driverless vehicles and even more so for those
disproportionately impacted.
