Garrett Camp, the Uber co-founder, has backed a new startup solving one of autonomous vehicles' most pressing problems: robotaxis wasting millions of miles cruising empty through city streets.
Aseon Labs, a Redwood City startup that just raised $10 million, is building parking-space-sized robotic pods scattered across cities that automatically clean, inspect, and charge robotaxis on demand.
Camp's venture firm Expa led the funding round alongside Crane Venture Partners, Y Combinator, and investors including former Google executive Adrian Aoun and Mercury founder Immad Akhund. Founding team members from Anthropic and Nuro also participated.
The problem is tangible. Autonomous vehicles cruising San Francisco streets without passengers are deadheading—industry speak for miles without paying customers—back to distant depots. This cuts into profitability for every robotaxi company competing with traditional ride-hailing.
Co-founder George Kalligeros said: "In order to reach economic parity with ride-hailing, you need the robotaxi in continuous operation during the entirety of the demand curve." Translated, robotaxis need to stay busy and generating revenue.
Kalligeros and COO Dan Keene built and scaled infrastructure before. They founded Pushme, a battery-swapping startup for micromobility fleets that was acquired by Tier Mobility in 2020. Both have experience building networks.
With five prototypes in development and a team expanding from six to twelve, Aseon is betting that distributed pit stops will make robotaxi economics work. The company is treating infrastructure as the key to profitability rather than an afterthought.
