Autotech Ventures’ new $230M mobility fund provides fintech, round economic system to its funding technique

Autotech Ventures will use its newly closed $230 million fund to develop past its basis of early-stage floor transportation startups and spend money on what the agency believes are the subsequent large alternatives in automotive and mobility.

Fintech, logistics, provide chain and the round economic system are on the prime of the checklist.

The $230 million fund, its third since launching in 2017, will probably be used to spend money on seed by way of Sequence C mobility-related startups, in keeping with the corporate. A combination of economic and company LPs, together with Allison Transmission, American Axle, Iochpe-Maxion and Shell participated within the fund.

“We’re nonetheless a floor transportation-focused agency and we have now a really comparable technique [with this fund],” Alexei Andreev, Autotech Ventures managing director instructed TechCrunch. “On a high-level, it’s similar as Fund 1 and Fund 2. Nevertheless, one of many quickest areas of progress is SaaS-enabled fintech. Auto commerce is inefficient and there are massive pockets of revenue to seize.”

The agency is especially interested by transportation-related fintech ventures which can be poised to develop throughout a recession.

“We made a prediction that eventually there will probably be a recession and we recognized areas that profit when the economic system softens, Andreev stated, noting that this newest fund invested in Yendo, a Dallas-based startup (previously often known as Otto) that lets prospects borrow towards their autos on the similar rate of interest as normal bank cards.

Autotech Ventures’ earlier fintech investments embrace U.Ok.-based purchase now, pay later startup Bumper and Carpay, a purchase right here, pay right here mortgage servicing SaaS platform for automobile sellers.

Andreev stated the agency can be investigating funding alternatives within the round economic system, a nascent trade centered on discovering methods to reuse supplies and merchandise. Round economic system startups have garnered an growing quantity of consideration and funding as automakers transition away from gas-powered autos and in the direction of EVs.

Autotech Ventures can be cautiously wading into generative AI, though Andreev was fast to notice that the corporate has not made any investments in that space.

Autotech has greater than $500 million below administration and has invested in additional than 40 corporations.

A number of the agency’s investments embrace laptop imaginative and prescient startup DeepScale (which was acquired by Tesla), Lyft, used automobile market operator Frontier Automotive Group, Drover, Outdoorsy, Swvl, parking app SpotHero and Xnor.ai, which Apple acquired in January 2020. 5 of these startups have gone public, together with indie Semiconductor and Volta Charging.