Is Zoox A Public Company?

Is Zoox A Public Company? Zoox is an autonomous-vehicle company that’s making a lot of noise lately. That’s because the company was bought by Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) in June 2020 and could be a foundational part of the company’s autonomous delivery model.

Amazon has one of the biggest distribution footprints in the world, and this partnership attracted a lot of investment interested in the brand.

Is Zoox Publicly Traded?

Zoox is not a public company. It was purchased by Amazon, and which believes Zoox is a key ingredient to driverless taxis.

Building a network of electric vehicles capable of ferrying passengers without a driver could disrupt major unicorns like Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE:UBER) and LYFT Inc (NASDAQ:LYFT).

That’s not all – tech giants like Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) are in the race, along with Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA). All of these companies hope to lead the race to autonomy, and there’s little guarantee Zoox will be Amazon’s quick shot to the finish.

Can Zoox provide Amazon investors a turbo boost of profitability?

A 60-Second History of Zoox

Zoox was founded in Foster City, California by Tim Kentley-Klay and Jesse Levinson. As the son of Apple chairman Arthur Levinson, Jesse has a pedigreed lineage.

He was independently pioneering an innovative career path from an early stage, developing self-driving technology at Stanford University. The name come from a creature called the Zooxanthellae, which lives symbiotically among marine life.

It was the first company to gain approval for self-driving transport in public by the state of California in December 2018. This was after raising $800 million at a $3.2 billion valuation that summer, and it recruited CEO Aicha Evans from Intel (INTC).

Although sued by Tesla (TSLA) in 2019, the company merged with Amazon in a deal worth over $1.2 billion by June 2020. By September of that year, it received permits to test driverless automobiles on public California roads, and it showcased the first fully autonomous, all-electric vehicle capable of reaching speeds of 75 mph in December.

Now the stage is set for the company to continue improving and expanding on this technology to pull ahead in a crowded field.

Can I Buy A Zoox Car?

You can’t buy a Zoox as a consumer – they’re meant to be used as a fleet for autonomous driving.

It’s unclear yet whether Amazon plans to license these vehicles to another company or simply keep them for itself. Just like Uber drivers deliver food and passengers, it’s virtually inevitable that these could be used for last-mile deliveries.

What we do know is they are not personal vehicles – they are meant as robotaxis for an autonomous fleet. So don’t expect to own one yourself. Zoox vehicles are built for the purpose of ferrying passengers, and you’ll need to pay for each ride like an Uber.

How Much Is A Zoox Car?

Each Zoox acts as its own self-contained robotaxi. They can run up to 16 hours on one charge and it’s not clear how much either the car or a ride in it will cost. This will certainly be unveiled by the trillion-dollar tech giant in a well-viewed public announcement.

As of this time, there is no public information regarding any pricing on riding in a Zoox car. We do know that they’re to be used as robotaxis though, so it’s out of the question that a consumer would buy one for a personal vehicle. These are not personal vehicles – they are a business fleet.

This means you will not be buying a Zoox any time soon. In fact, we don’t know yet if Amazon will be selling them anywhere nor how much it costs. It’s all a mystery and proprietary company knowledge we can not gain access to until they release such information publicly.

Is Zoox A Publicly Traded Company?

As mentioned above, Zoox is not a publicly traded company. It was bought by Amazon in the summer of 2020, and it is now an Amazon subsidiary. The company can use these vehicles however it sees fit as it owns the company.

For you to invest in Zoox, you’ll need to purchase Amazon stock. This will give you ownership of a piece of Amazon and all of its subsidiaries and brands, including Whole Foods and Zoox. This is the only way to invest in Zoox, because it’s not listed on any public stock market exchange.

Is Zoox Owned By Amazon?

For readers skipping to this question, Amazon owns Zoox. Amazon bought Zoox as described above in July 2020 for $1.2 billion. This is a big deal for Amazon in its efforts to build its own sustainable delivery infrastructure.

Amazon wholly owns Zoox. It is an Amazon subsidiary like AWS, and that means Amazon is in complete control. You can not invest in Zoox on the general market. No retail investor has access to it, but you can buy Amazon shares to gain exposure to any potential upside in Zoox.

How Much Did Amazon Buy Zoox For?

Amazon paid $1.2 billion for Zoox. The company thought it would be the best bet to get into the autonomous driving sector. This is a fast-growing sector that includes major brands like Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Uber (UBER).

Of course, Amazon is a tech giant itself, and it’s not trying to lose any ground. It already spent a lot of resources testing drone delivery, and this could be another step in that direction.

At this point, everything is entirely conjecture and guesses, as it’s too early to know what could happen in such a young industry.

Is Zoox A Good Company?

Zoox is wholly owned by Amazon. It did have a down-round when purchased meaning its valuation during its final funding round was higher than its purchase price. That suggests there were problems behind the scenes that forced the company to sell at a price far below its former valuation.

Still, Amazon corporate development team must have spotted something valuable in the technology and had the deep pockets to finance further development if cash flows were the issue faced by Zoox.

Even if Zoox is a great company with massive 10x returns, that would make it worth $10 billion, a small piece of Amazon’s nearly $2 trillion pie. That’s less than 0.01 percent of the total company, so take anything with a grain of salt. Zoox could be a massive success or a huge failure, and it won’t change much about Amazon any time in the near future.

---

The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Financhill has a disclosure policy. This post may contain affiliate links or links from our sponsors.