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Volkswagen closes $2.6 billion investment in self-driving startup Argo AIBy Reuters

(Reuters) - German automaker Volkswagen AG has closed its $2.6 billion investment in Argo AI, the Pittsburgh-based self-driving startup disclosed in a blog post on Tuesday.

Argo, founded in 2016 by Bryan Salesky and Peter Rander, is now jointly controlled by Volkswagen and Ford Motor Co , which made an initial investment in Argo shortly after it was founded.

Details of the Volkswagen investment, which does not include an agreement to purchase $500 million worth of Argo stock from Ford, was announced last July.

Volkswagen's agreement includes the transfer to Argo of its Munich-based Autonomous Intelligent Driving unit, which boosts Argo's employment to more than 1,000, according to Salesky.

Last week, Volkswagen disclosed that its supervisory board had approved several projects in a multibillion-dollar alliance with Ford that also was announced last July.

Ford created Ford Autonomous Vehicles LLC in 2018, pledging to invest $4 billion until 2023 and had sought outside investors to help share the spiraling cost of developing autonomous vehicles.

(Reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit; Editing by Nick Zieminski)