Argo AI, a startup founded by engineers who worked on self-driving car projects at Google and Uber, has taken a different route than some of its competitors. Instead of raising venture capital, Argo AI decided the quickest way to get its technology into large numbers of vehicles was to team up with Ford Motor Co., according to founder and CEO Bryan Salesky.

“We wanted to get self-driving cars into the world at scale, and the most effective way was to partner with an automaker,” Mr. Salesky said at The Information’s “Reinventing the Wheel: the State of Play in Autonomous Vehicles” event Tuesday.