ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE) at the University of Michigan has unveiled the six participating startups for the 2027 Perot Jain TechLab at Mcity. The selection follows a summer recruitment campaign in which the CFE received over 30 applications from early-stage mobility companies worldwide. Selected startups were chosen for their technical innovation, growth runway, and commitment to mentoring U-M engineering talent.
PJTL at Mcity provides students with immersive opportunities to experience entrepreneurship within the connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) industry. The program pairs emerging transportation ventures with four-person multidisciplinary student teams for a two-semester commitment. Participating startups receive access to U-M’s world-class Mcity living lab and testing garages, vehicle platforms (including the Ford Mach-E and NiFT Shuttle), and advanced sensor suites at no cost, while retaining full ownership of project intellectual property.
Nick Moroz
CFE Director of Entrepreneurial Education & Director of the Perot Jain TechLab ProgramsMore than 300 students have participated in the program over the past 10 years, with dozens now working full-time in the mobility industry and a notable few even founding their own tech-driven startups, such as CoverTree.
The 2027 participating PJTL Mcity companies and exploratory projects include:
Snowbotix (Ypsilanti, MI) — Snowbotix develops all-electric, autonomous multi-utility ground robots (SMUR) for year-round outdoor maintenance using modular attachments and an OEM-agnostic ROS 2 drop-in autonomy stack. The student team will reverse-engineer vehicle control units (VCUs) and CAN/CAN-FD protocols to integrate, validate, and demonstrate Snowbotix’s “Autonomy-in-a-Box” (AIB) kit on third-party vehicle platforms.
TrubAI (New York, NY) — TrubAI is an urban mobility startup combining quantitative movement data, human behavioral science, and proprietary small language models to optimize municipal transit and infrastructure decisions. Student teams will analyze crash data and behavioral factors to evaluate the feasibility of remote-controlled traffic signal interventions at a high-crash Ann Arbor intersection using Mcity’s simulation infrastructure.
FORT Robotics (Philadelphia, PA) — FORT Robotics provides functional safety hardware and supervised autonomy software for heavy machinery and physical AI. Expanding on its acquisition of Mapless AI, FORT will guide students in extending a vision-based vehicle platooning platform into an active-safety prototype by integrating dynamic 3D pose-tracking perception algorithms and automated safety interlocks.
GeoMate (Waterloo, ON, Canada) — GeoMate leverages aerial imagery and computer vision to generate high-definition vector maps (RealSimE) for autonomous driving simulation. Students will construct an automated map-validation framework and interactive dashboard to benchmark AI-generated maps against OpenDRIVE standards within Mcity Software-in-the-Loop (SiL) and Hardware-in-the-Loop (HiL) workflows.
FeaturesFirst Auto (Los Angeles, CA) — FeaturesFirst Auto increases driver confidence and utilization of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) through microlearning modules on its FeaturED™ platform. The student team will build and deploy a native Android Automotive OS (AAOS) in-vehicle driver interface paired with an enterprise fleet management analytics dashboard.
Lisa Bailey
Founder & CEO, FeaturesFirst Auto
ResilienX (Syracuse, NY) — ResilienX builds safety assurance and mission orchestration software (ORION-X) for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and commercial drone fleets. Students will develop a 3D visual mission-planning prototype to simulate and verify drone camera field of view, sensor footprints, and flight-path coverage before physical aircraft tasking.
This year brought our largest applicant pool to date, filling our pipeline with an exceptionally high caliber of project options. While narrowing down such a strong field was challenging, the resulting cohort represents a dynamic and diverse range of industries. Partnering with these companies allows us to broaden our recruitment reach and create compelling opportunities for students across an even wider spectrum of academic backgrounds. – Kaitlin Keahl, Entrepreneurial Practice Programs Manager