Anthony Levandowski is back with a new self-driving startup, called Kache.ai

INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
This is a comeback story
Or at least the first chapter to one.Anthony Levandowski, the former Google engineer and serial entrepreneur who was at the center of a
trade secrets lawsuit between Uber and Waymo, is back
And he is connected to an autonomous trucking company that is still in stealth mode, TechCrunch has learned.The company, called Kache.ai
(pronounced like cache), has kept a low profile since paperwork registering it as a corporation was first filed with the California
Secretary of State nearly seven months ago
A search on LinkedIn showed Lee, a software developer whose previous experience includes co-founding two San Diego-based companies, as
president of Kache.ai
Since reaching out to Kache.ai, all references of the company have been removed from LinkedIn.However, the address listed on the
Helena, Calif
for comment
However, other unnamed sources within the global autonomous vehicle ecosystem confirmed to TechCrunch that Levandowski is connected to the
company.Little is known about Kache.ai
one point listed an email contact for Lee and described its mission, is now blank except for a single image of a jagged mountain ridge
TechCrunch was able to review and capture screenshots of the website prior to the changes, one of which is shown above
level of on-the-road self-driving trucks
engineers that thrive in such an environment.It appears the company is hiring at every level, from mapping and database experts to people
with robotics and simulation skills
The website also noted that the company is looking for software engineers with experience in convolutional neural networks as well as
computer vision and machine learning algorithms.The website said Kache.ai is located in the San Francisco area.A not so unlikely returnTo
To former colleagues and others who know him, it was inevitable
speculation.Levandowski is part of the brain trust of autonomous vehicle technology that for years was largely confined to academic
research.That began to change on March 13, 2004 when 15 teams brought their autonomous vehicles to the desert outside of Barstow, Calif
They were there to compete in the Grand Challenge, a 142-mile race sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to encourage
development of autonomous vehicle technology
Ghostrider
The vehicle is now at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.And while not a single team completed the course, it prompted
DARPA to hold two more autonomous vehicle challenges
efforts at large companies or look for ways to move the autonomous vehicle needle forward
Levandowski was one of them.In 2007, Levandowski joined Google, where he was one of the principal architects of Google Street View
The engineer had other projects too, notably a startup called 510 Systems that made and sold sensor systems to his employer, Google
510 Systems was a pioneer of using light ranging and detection systems known as LiDAR to make maps
meteoric rise and fallAfter nearly nine years at Google, Levandowski left the company with fellow Google employee Lior Ron
The race to deploy autonomous vehicles had heated up, creating a frenzied winner-takes-all environment
Competition between companies to attract talent pushed up salaries and incentives
world was theirs for the taking
frenzy
(Documents filed as part of the lawsuit between Waymo and Uber suggest the pay out might have been as low as $220 million.)But the buzz
around the size of the Otto deal would soon be replaced with a different, more unwelcoming kind of attention.Nine months after the
acquisition, Uber was embroiled in a trade secrets lawsuit with Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that spun out to become a
business under Alphabet
And Levandowski was out of a job.The lawsuit, filed against self-driving truck startup Otto and its parent company Uber in February 2017,
alleged patent infringement and stealing trade secrets
The lawsuit made a number of allegations specifically against Levandowski, including that he downloaded more than 14,000 confidential and
proprietary files shortly before his resignation
Waymo contended that Otto and Uber were using key parts of its self-driving technology, specifically related to its light detection and
ranging radar
This technology, known in the industry as LiDAR, measures distance using laser light to generate highly accurate 3D maps of the world around
the car.The case went to trial in February 2018
After days of titillating testimony, including from former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, the two parties reached a settlement agreement
Uber also agreed to pay a financial settlement that includes 0.34 percent of Uber equity, per its Series G-1 round $72 billion valuation
In other words, Waymo got about $244.8 million in Uber equity.Six weeks later, Uber would be grappling with the tragic fatal accident
involving one of its self-driving test vehicles in Tempe, Ariz.The other three Otto founders have all left Uber, as well
Burnette, the last one to depart, founded an autonomous vehicle company in April called Kodiak Robotics with Paz Eshel, who formerly worked
and Waymo
Instead, autonomous trucking companies like TuSimple use multiple cameras, which have better resolution
ethical missteps
The remaining chapters will reveal whether the unique value prop of what Kache.ai is developing is strong enough to render all of that moot.