In brief: DoorDash acquires autonomous driving startup Scotty Labs

DoorDash has been on an acquisition tear of late, with Scotty Labs as its latest target.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but this comes after DoorDash acquired Caviar in a deal worth US$410 million.
Scotty Labs, a tele-operations company that is working on technology to enable people to remotely control self-driving cars, raised a US$6 million seed round from Gradient Ventures, with participation from Horizon Ventures and Hemi Ventures, last March.
The startup had previously worked with Voyage for its self-driving cars in retirement communities.
This investment in autonomous tech through its acquisition of Scotty Labs and acqui-hire of the team from Lvl5 comes at a time when DoorDash says it is revamping its policies around driver wages.
The enthusiasm and potential of autonomous tech had led to startups creating literally dozens of interesting products that focus on different aspects of this field. But it will take a village to get this tech off the ground, which means that consolidation is inevitable.
As technology becomes a key way for the crowded arena of delivery startups to differentiate themselves, investing in its own autonomous tech R&D — by way of picking up some of these disparate startups that may have struggled to survive on their own — is one way for DoorDash to build out that tech cred.