Story by: Clarissa Hawes @ FreightWaves.com

Autonomous trucking startup Starsky Robotics is in talks with potential buyers, including some with its rivals, after failing to raise new funding to stay afloat, a former employee claims.

The 3-year-old startup is best known for its Level 4 autonomous trucking technology that uses truck drivers as remote operators to navigate the first- and last-mile segments of a trip.

Autonomous vehicle rivals including Embark, Cruise, Tesla, Nicola and Amazon are listed as being “interested in parts of the [Starsky] team,” according to an internal document forwarded to FreightWaves that was sent out to employees on Dec. 16.

The document to Starsky employees claims that it recently “hosted” autonomous trucking rival Embark Trucks, which has secured more than $117 million in fundraising since its founding in 2016.

Starsky is also in talks with Silicon Valley Bank and iBanks.com about the process of “selling to the highest bidder and giving money back to the bank,” the document alleges.

The autonomous startup should have funds to last it through the end of January, Starsky said in an email to employees.

Stefan Seltz-Axmacher, co-founder of Starsky, declined to comment about a possible sale of the autonomous trucking startup. However, Seltz-Axmacher claimed on his LinkedIn profile that the company is still “aggressively hiring.”  In June, Starsky announced plans to ramp up to 25 driverless trucks by 2020, but one former insider said that never happened.

Read the full story HERE @ freightwaves.com

Related story: Starsky Robotics downsizes its OTR fleet, blames 2019 freight recession

Source and credits: freightwaves.com / Clarissa Hawes /  iTrucker  / Mario Pawlowski  CEO @ iTrucker