Autonomous driving, AI-based virtual driver software company Plus to go public
AI-based virtual driver software company Plus, very active in the field of autonomous driving software for trucks, is about to go public via merger with Churchill Capital Corp IX. Indeed, the two players have entered into a definitive business combination agreement. Upon closing of the transaction, the combined company will operate as PlusAI.
AI-based virtual driver software company Plus, very active in the field of autonomous driving software for trucks, is about to go public via merger with Churchill Capital Corp IX. Indeed, the two players have entered into a definitive business combination agreement. Upon closing of the transaction, the combined company will operate as PlusAI.
Founded in Silicon Valley in 2016 by technology entrepreneurs with deep expertise in engineering, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, Plus set out to develop a leading virtual driver system. The company has pioneered a more efficient development approach, thus replacing hand-coded software with AI models to enable scalable, adaptive autonomy for physical applications. Plus is currently working side by side with manufacturers such as IVECO, or the brands belonging to the TRATON Group (Scania and MAN in Europe; International in North America) in the development of autonomous driving solutions in the trucking sector.
Plus stands out as a pioneer in autonomous driving for heavy-duty trucks
In addition, Plus’s self-driving system, SuperDrive, features a robust, three-layer redundancy architecture and is purpose-built to autonomously operate heavy commercial trucks. In April 2025, Plus achieved a key driver-out safety validation milestone with SuperDrive. Plus is currently conducting public road testing in Texas and Sweden with additional customer fleet trials scheduled for fall of 2025.
“I’m incredibly proud of the team’s accomplishments to date and confident that, in partnership with Churchill IX, we can accelerate our mission and create significant value for shareholders by scaling with disciplined execution. This transaction provides access to capital and strategic support that will help us advance our product roadmap, execute our development and commercialization strategy, and deliver a transformative logistics solution to one of the world’s largest and most essential industries”, stated David Liu, Co-Founder and CEO of Plus.
