Traders can’t appear to get sufficient of RJ Scaringe or his concepts.
In lower than a decade, the serial entrepreneur finest identified for his EV firm Rivian, has raised greater than $12.3 billion from enterprise capital companies, in addition to strategic and institutional traders for his three — and counting — startups. If the most recent $400 million raise for his new enterprise Thoughts Robotics is an indicator, traders are nonetheless fortunately piling in.
Outsized raises for newly minted startups have turn out to be extra widespread lately. However these hundred-million-plus seed rounds have usually been reserved for buzzy protection tech startups or AI corporations based by former OpenAI or Anthropic staff.
These supersized seeds definitely weren’t flowing towards one thing as area of interest as an electrical micromobility startup. And but in 2025, Scaringe raised $105 million for precisely that — a startup referred to as Also, which he based that very same 12 months. The entire has since surpassed $300 million, with DoorDash amongst its backers.
Jiten Behl, accomplice at Eclipse and former chief development officer at Rivian, has spent years watching and studying from Scaringe. His agency is now one in all Scaringe’s greatest backers, main rounds in each Additionally and Thoughts Robotics — Scaringe’s industrial AI and robotics startup that he additionally based final 12 months.
Storytelling and communication are one in all his superpowers, based on Behl, who joined Rivian when the corporate had only a handful of staff.
“When RJ explains a sure situation, subject, alternative, imaginative and prescient, he simply has this very distinctive skill to speak it so successfully, and it comes throughout so credible,” Behl stated. “He’s not making an attempt to undersell the issue or oversell the chance, and that’s an artwork.”
Scaringe is not the one serial entrepreneur to repeatedly entice huge quantities of capital, however founders who can increase billions throughout a number of ventures stay uncommon. The self-professed automotive fanatic who earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT, joins a small cadre of entrepreneurs that features Tesla CEO and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anduril and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, and Jack Dorsey, who based Sq. (now referred to as Block) and Twitter.
The distinction, no less than within the view of some traders TechCrunch spoke to, is that he’s in a position to separate promoting the thought from promoting himself. “He’s very comfy and assured in his personal persona, and he is not making an attempt to be an Elon,” Behl stated, noting that many have tried to make the comparability through the years.
“It isn’t about him,” one other insider accustomed to Scaringe’s corporations informed TechCrunch. “While you speak to him, he has enthusiasm in regards to the product that’s fully exterior.”
After all, there’s confidence and even a bit ego, the identical supply mused, however “it does not weigh on you.” The supply additionally added that Scaringe additionally has a novel skill to make you’re feeling like essentially the most particular particular person within the room — a sentiment others echoed.
Giving that type of undivided consideration to an investor, provider, or exec at a producer is a problem on the scale Scaringe is making an attempt. He’s operating three corporations, usually touring between Palo Alto and Irvine, California, Rivian’s manufacturing facility in Regular, Illinois, and shortly a second manufacturing facility in Georgia. After which there’s household; Scaringe has three sons he shares along with his ex-wife.
Joe Fath, one other accomplice at Eclipse, credit his open-mindedness and collaborative nature for serving to him entice funding and juggle these linked, but disparate companies.
He famous that Scaringe additionally “has the uncommon mixture of being a really nice engineer whereas additionally having an distinctive intuition for product design,” stated Fath, who beforehand labored at a significant Rivian backer T.Rowe Worth. “Only a few founders can function at that degree technically whereas additionally understanding what resonates emotionally with clients — each shoppers and business consumers. That mixture is extremely unusual and has clearly been a part of what makes Rivian’s merchandise (and now ALSO and Thoughts’s) so differentiated.”
The tempo of Scaringe’s fundraising over the previous eight years is especially notable, and does not appear to be slowing.
Greater than $11 billion, and by far the most important slice of VC and strategic capital, went into Rivian — most of it between 2018 and its blockbuster IPO in 2021. That is a startling timeline particularly contemplating the corporate, initially referred to as Mainstream Motors, had existed since 2009. For years, Rivian operated as a small, unknown entity till its breakout moment in late 2018 on the Los Angeles Auto Present, when it revealed prototypes of its all-electric R1T truck and R1S SUV.
The cash quickly flowed, and from each path. In early 2019 and simply a few months after that reveal, Rivian raised a $700 million funding spherical led by Amazon. U.S. automaker Ford would make investments $500 million and make plans to collaborate on a since-scrapped future EV program. Cox Automotive contributed $350 million. Rivian would shut out the 12 months with a $1.3 billion round — its fourth in 2019 — led by funds and accounts suggested by T. Rowe Worth Associates, with further participation from Amazon, Ford, and funds managed by BlackRock.
In July 2020, Rivian raised $2.5 billion and one other $2.65 billion six months later. As whispers of an IPO received louder, Rivian closed one other $2.5 billion non-public funding spherical led by Amazon’s Local weather Pledge Fund, D1 Capital Companions, Ford Motor and funds and accounts suggested by T. Rowe Worth Associates Inc. Third Level, Constancy Administration and Analysis Firm, Dragoneer Funding Group and Coatue additionally participated.
Then the IPO got here. Rivian raised almost $12 billion in gross proceeds after locking in $78 per share. Its market cap hit $100 billion when it debuted on Nasdaq in November 2021. Right now, it stands at $18.2 billion at the moment, a major comedown that additionally displays the broader struggles of the EV sector.
The power to lift that a lot capital, regardless of these headwinds, is phenomenal. However Scaringe did not cease with Rivian. If something, the tempo has accelerated. Additionally and Thoughts Robotics have collectively raised greater than $1.3 billion to this point, with Thoughts Robotics shifting particularly quick: $115 million in its first 12 months, $500 million in March, and one other $400 million simply this week.
Rivian additionally continues to land notable backers by means of high-profile offers just like the $5.8 billion three way partnership with Volkswagen Group and a robotaxi partnership valued at as much as $1.25 billion with Uber.
“Now, the massive query is, how a lot can he do?” Behl stated. “That is a query [that] already assumes that he is reaching his restrict. The factor is, he does not have a look at it that approach. His perspective is that there’s large worth to be created, there’s large affect to be created, and I simply need to do it.”
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