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Autolane Hopes To Bring Order To Robotaxi Pickups and Dropoffs
Wait your turn, Waymo. // Illustration by Kate Walker
A new startup called Autolane wants to build the physical and digital infrastructure to help businesses and other private spaces navigate the autonomous vehicles that go in and out of their properties.
Why It Hits: Autonomous-vehicle adoption is accelerating across the globe. The only problem is that while these vehicles are getting better at traversing city streets, the logistics of parking, idling, and other pedestrian-adjacent tasks remain a major blind spot — one that’s creating bottlenecks and general chaos.
Between The Lanes: Autolane has raised $7.4 million to become what co-founder and CEO Ben Seidl calls, “air traffic control for autonomous vehicles.”
Autolane plans to bring order to how AVs perform tasks like dropping off passengers in private parking lots, stopping to pick up groceries, and queueing during high-demand pick-ups.
The company has already struck a deal with Simon Property Group to coordinate driverless cars at shopping centers in Austin and San Francisco.
The startup plans to work only with property groups and private businesses, creating unique APIs for each property so clients can customize rules for incoming and outgoing AVs.
Last Turn: Seidl told TechCrunch that what Autolane is trying to address are incidents like the one that happened at a Chick-fil-A in Santa Monica earlier this year. After a Waymo dropped off passengers, it didn’t know how to leave the premises properly and got stuck in the drive-thru. We can only imagine how confusing that must’ve been for the employees.
Next Stop: With seemingly no competition, Autolane could gain a first-mover advantage by securing funding and deals — similar to how Waymo has pulled ahead of the competition.
Together with Kurv
Black Friday’s Over… Now The Real Payment Stress Begins
The post–Cyber Monday lull is usually when merchants realize just how much rising processing fees and fraud attempts are eating into their margins. That’s why many are turning to Kurv — the provider keeping swiped, keyed, and online rates below 3%, even during the busiest stretch of the year.
Why it matters: December brings higher volume, faster checkout expectations, and a spike in suspicious activity. Kurv’s fast onboarding, real 24/7 support, and strong fraud controls make the transition feel smooth instead of chaotic.
The bottom line: After four decades in payments and millions of weekly transactions, Kurv is becoming the quiet cost-saver merchants rely on to survive the holiday push — without paying for it in January.
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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.