Ford unit teams with startup developing ‘Waze’ for self-driving cars

Startup RideOS said that it has raised $9 million led by venture firm Sequoia Capital and reached a partnership with a division of Ford.

Started by two former Uber Technologies employees, RideOS plans to sell software that gives routes and other dispatching instructions to fleets of autonomous cars. Add RideOS to a mounting list of companies competing to create markets around the nascent technology, which continues to reel in investment.

Most of these companies are building tools to make driverless cars a reality. RideOS, based in San Francisco, is aiming for the future when they are on the roads and need to navigate physical hurdles. When a car encounters road construction, for example, the software would warn others in the fleet, or it could call for a small sedan in some circumstances and a bigger car in another.