ARLINGTON, Texas — This article was originally published by our content partners at the Dallas Business Journal. You can read the original article here.
An autonomous shuttle startup is planning to move its headquarters to Arlington from Dallas.
Mozee Inc., founded in 2021, builds 12-seat autonomous electric shuttles. Currently, the company has operations in the Design District of Dallas. Shawn Taikratoke, CEO of Mozee, said the company's shuttles can be found at Clarkson University in upstate New York and that it will be rolling out two more at the JPMorgan Chase office campus in Plano in the next month.
Arlington City Council is expected to vote Oct. 8 on an incentives deal that could aid the company's move. The economic development agreement is on council's consent agenda, which is for items that usually require little discussion and are voted on all at once.
Mozee manufactures parts through a 3D printing process to assemble the shuttles, which are capable of speeds up to 45 miles per hour, according to a City of Arlington staff report. Currently, Taikratoke said the company employs 18 people, including contractors.
He said the decision to move to Arlington came down to the opportunity to possibly partner with the city as a transit option. In 2017, Arlington City Council voted to replace a fixed route bus called Metro Arlington Xpress with an on-demand ridesharing service called Via, which is scaling to 68 vehicles, according to its website.
Taikratoke relishes the chance to add another transit option in the city, especially in the Arlington Entrainment District, which will host major sporting events such as several FIFA World Cup matches in 2026 and an IndyCar race the same year.
"We can't wait for everyone to ... Mozee along is what we say here," he said.
The potential incentives agreement would provide Mozee up to $4.17 million in grants to support the company's establishment of a headquarters and factory inside an 87,254-square-foot space at 2910 Avenue F in Arlington. The location is a short drive from the city's Entertainment District.
According to the performance agreement, Mozee would have to create 100 jobs in three years with a minimum average salary of $100,000, spend $2 million on facility improvements and establish the headquarters by the end of year. The agreement also calls for Mozee to recruit from the University of Texas at Arlington and dedicate a percentage of contracting expenses for Arlington and minority firms, and to be manufacturing or assembling six vehicles at the new plant at a time.
In exchange, the Arlington Economic Development Corp. would pay the company $4.17 million in grants over several years. The first payment of $625,000 would be within 60 days of the company executing a lease. After that, the company would receive an annual payment of $507,728 from 2025 to 2031. If the company does not meet the requirements of the agreement, it would be required to pay back the grants.
The Arlington Economic Development Corp. board unanimously recommended the incentives agreement during a Sept. 25 meeting. Marty Wieder, executive director of the AEDC, said it's too early to discuss what a potential partnership between the company and the city might look like but that the board found the company attractive because it has existing contracts and it seeks to tap the engineering workforce coming out of UTA. He also cited the software Taikratoke and his company's investors want to license.
"That's leading-edge technology," Wieder said. "That's the kind of thing I think our city wants to be associated with."
More Texas headlines:
