U-M autonomous-driving research helped create an Ann Arbor AI company now potentially worth $1.4 billion. Michigan taxpayers helped fund its growth. The next test is how many Michigan jobs follow.
ANN ARBOR — Michigan has spent millions of taxpayer dollars building an economic-development system designed to turn university research into startups, attract private investment and create high-paying technology jobs.
May Mobility may be exactly the kind of company Michigan has been trying to create.
The University of Michigan artificial-intelligence and autonomous-vehicle spinout is preparing to go public in a transaction carrying a proposed $1.4 billion enterprise value.
May currently employs 285 people worldwide, including 143 in Michigan, the company told MITechNews. It also confirmed it intends to keep its corporate headquarters in Ann Arbor following the proposed transaction.
If the deal closes, May could join a small group of billion-dollar technology companies that emerged from the University of Michigan ecosystem.
But May’s history also demonstrates how difficult it can be to turn promising university technology into hundreds of permanent Michigan jobs.
May Could Join U-M’s Billion-Dollar Club
May isn’t the first major technology company to emerge from the University of Michigan.
HistoSonics, built around histotripsy technology developed at U-M, announced a $2.25 billion acquisition in 2025.
Ann Arbor cybersecurity company Duo Security, founded by U-M alumni, reached a billion-dollar private valuation before Cisco acquired it for $2.35 billion in 2018. Duo wasn’t a faculty research spinout like May, but became one of Ann Arbor’s biggest technology success stories.
Another U-M startup, Amplitude Vascular Systems, was acquired by Kalamazoo-based Stryker in 2026 for as much as $835 million.
May’s proposed $1.4 billion enterprise value could put it in similarly rare territory.
The figures aren’t directly comparable — some are acquisition prices while May’s figure is a proposed enterprise value — but they demonstrate the potential commercial value of technology and companies emerging from U-M research and its broader entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Michigan Put Taxpayer Money Behind May
May’s development wasn’t financed exclusively by universities and private investors.
Michigan taxpayers also backed the company directly.
In 2020, the Michigan Strategic Fund approved a $700,000 performance-based grant supporting May’s Ann Arbor expansion and a commitment to create 100 new jobs.
State records show the full $700,000 was ultimately disbursed and May reported 115 new jobs, exceeding the original jobs commitment.
Michigan backed May again in 2023.
The Michigan Strategic Fund approved a $3 million performance-based grant tied initially to 300 new jobs, retention of 197 existing jobs and up to $18 million in investment.
But that expansion didn’t proceed as originally projected.
In 2024, May told state officials it would be unable to meet its original growth targets after revising its business plan and reducing expectations for its autonomous-vehicle technology expansion.
Michigan subsequently reduced the grant from $3 million to $1 million and lowered the new-job commitment from 300 to 100 jobs.
The state’s latest annual reporting showed no money had yet been disbursed under the amended second award. The agreement ultimately calls for up to 100 qualified new jobs by Oct. 31, 2026.
So the taxpayer number needs an important distinction:
Michigan has paid May $700,000 under the completed first grant and has authorized up to another $1 million under a separate performance-based agreement.
From U-M Research To Wall Street
May Mobility was founded in 2017 by Edwin Olson, a University of Michigan professor of computer science and engineering, along with U-M alumni and other co-founders.
The company licensed five autonomous-driving technologies developed at U-M.
And that university technology remains important to the company today.
“Some of our core technology today is directly descended from technology that we built and licensed from U-M,” May Mobility told MITechNews.
Olson also credited U-M’s technology licensing operation with helping transform research into a commercial product.
“We found the technology licensing office to be a great team to work with,” Olson told MITechNews. “They understood the needs of a startup and helped us land a licensing deal that let us turn a fairly abstract technology into a product that has delivered half a million autonomous rides (and counting) in the real world.”
May now plans to combine with ACP Holdings Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company.
The proposed business combination carries a $1.4 billion pro forma enterprise value and could generate up to $337 million in gross proceeds.
If required approvals are received and the transaction closes, May expects to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker MAY.
Yes, May Mobility Is An AI Company
May also confirmed to MITechNews that it considers itself an artificial-intelligence company.
“May Mobility is an autonomous vehicle technology company developing physical AI systems for commercial ride-hail services,” the company said.
May says its patented physical AI system operates entirely onboard the vehicle, integrating deep learning, a dynamic world model and a real-time reasoning engine to navigate new and complex driving situations.
That puts May at the intersection of two industries Michigan is counting on for future economic growth: artificial intelligence and advanced mobility.
May Wants To Sell The Brains
May’s business model also helps explain why investors could contemplate a $1.4 billion enterprise value for a company that generated only about $10 million in revenue during 2025.
May calls its model “Autonomy-as-a-Service.”
Put more simply, May wants to sell the brains that drive autonomous vehicles rather than own all the cars.
Fleet partners can own and maintain vehicles and operate depots. May supplies the autonomous-driving technology and can receive fixed or per-trip fees.
That potentially allows May to expand without carrying the enormous expense of owning and operating thousands of robotaxis.
May says it has completed more than 550,000 commercial autonomous rides covering 1.1 million miles in the United States and Japan.
The company has relationships with major transportation players including Toyota, Uber, Lyft, Grab and NTT.
May generated approximately $10 million in revenue in 2025 with a 27 percent gross margin, while its cash burn totaled approximately $93 million. The company says it has raised roughly $445 million since its founding in 2017.
Where Will The New Money Go?
MITechNews asked May whether some of the potential $337 million from the transaction would specifically be invested in its Ann Arbor operations, Michigan R&D, facilities or Michigan suppliers.
The company didn’t specify a Michigan amount.
Instead, May said proceeds are expected to support additional R&D and industrialization, expansion of its driver-out operating capabilities, supply-chain investments, new deployments in the United States and overseas, and general working capital.
May currently operates commercially in three U.S. locations and has additional deployments planned in Texas and Japan.
In Michigan, May currently operates driverless vehicles in Ann Arbor for testing and demonstration purposes.
Now Comes The Michigan Jobs Test
May Mobility illustrates much of what Michigan’s technology-development strategy is supposed to accomplish.
University research became intellectual property. That intellectual property helped create a Michigan startup. The startup attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in private capital. The company remained headquartered in Ann Arbor, created technology jobs and could soon enter the public markets with a proposed $1.4 billion enterprise value.
But the jobs story is more complicated.
May exceeded the 100-job requirement associated with its first state incentive, according to state records.
Its much larger second expansion didn’t materialize as originally projected, forcing Michigan to reduce the grant and job requirement.
Today, 143 of May’s 285 worldwide employees are in Michigan — slightly more than half of its workforce.
May hasn’t projected how many additional Michigan jobs could result from the proposed transaction, nor has it specified how much of the potential $337 million will be invested in Michigan.
So May Mobility’s proposed $1.4 billion enterprise value isn’t the final measure of whether Michigan’s technology-development strategy is paying off.
The company has already demonstrated that University of Michigan research can become a globally competitive Michigan-headquartered AI and autonomous-vehicle business.
For Michigan taxpayers, the next number to watch isn’t May Mobility’s stock price. It’s how many Michigan jobs come next.
