Trucks VC is seeing a larger wave of autonomous vehicle startups than the sector's previous boom, according to TechCrunch Mobility. The early-stage investor has received pitches from 81 new AV companies so far in 2026, two-thirds more than last year and more than the firm saw during the boom a decade ago. Trucks VC argues in a blog post that a second, larger AV wave is underway, driven by advances in artificial intelligence.
Partner Puneeth Meruva told TechCrunch Mobility that foundation models now offer a technical architecture that can support end-to-end autonomous driving systems. Those models are particularly effective at generalizing across environments and scenarios, which could make AVs cheaper and faster to deploy, he said. The availability of open source models such as Nvidia's Alpamayo and Qwen's general-purpose vision-language-action models has made it easier for startups to launch, according to the report. Trucks VC is consistently seeing startups deploy within a few months and with less than $1 million raised, Meruva said.
The pitch mix included construction, warehouse, agriculture and mining applications, but the report highlighted a growing number of pure-play robotaxi startups, many positioning themselves as direct competitors to Waymo. Meruva said smaller, more niche autonomy companies can compete in specific regions or on specific types of routes, even if they do not take on Waymo globally. He expects even more AV startups to pitch Trucks VC next year.
Separately, Re:Build, a Massachusetts-based manufacturing accelerator, raised $2.1 billion to expand its capacity to manufacture hard tech products and launch new industrial startups. General Catalyst and JPMorganChase's Strategic Investment Group led the round; other investors were not disclosed. Re:Build was co-founded by former Amazon commercial CEO Jeff Wilke and has described itself as a U.S. counterpart to Shenzhen.
Bedrock Robotics raised $600 million in a Series C round that values the autonomous vehicle technology startup at $4.1 billion. CapitalG and Emergence Capital co-led the round. New investors US Innovative Technology Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners and Temasek participated, alongside existing investors 8VC, Georgian, Valor Equity Partners, Xora, Eclipse, Perry Creek Capital and Nvidia.
PreScalar, a San Francisco startup developing software and testing infrastructure for factories, raised $7 million in seed funding co-led by Dynamo Ventures and BMW i Ventures. Blue Wire Capital, Uplift Ventures and Antler also participated. The company was founded last year by a trio with experience at Cruise, Google, Rivian and Waymo. DoorDash, meanwhile, agreed to acquire Instacart for $17 billion; in its third-quarter earnings, DoorDash said it has so far received only a few hundred orders from AI agents.
In other industry developments, Kodiak AI will deliver 75 self-driving trucks to freight company DTL Transport starting in 2028, its first binding commercial deal for driverless big rigs on public highways. Waymo and Toyota have locked in a manufacturing partnership under which Toyota will build AV-ready bZ4X vehicles and integrate Waymo's self-driving system at a factory in Japan. The vehicles are intended for robotaxi services in Japan, the U.K. and other international markets, and the companies hinted that the deal could eventually lead to licensing Waymo technology for personally owned vehicles.
Rivian raised the floor of its 2026 delivery guidance to 67,000 vehicles from a prior range of 65,000 to 70,000 after a strong reception for its new R2. The $5.8 billion joint venture between Rivian and Volkswagen Group is expanding to include AI assistants, with no word yet on whether Volkswagen will invest more. GM agreed to a $220 million settlement with 36 states over allegations that it illegally sold private driving behavior and location information to data brokers; the automaker had earlier settled with California and the Federal Trade Commission. Ford announced two new EV chargers that will let its forthcoming Fathom pickup truck supply power to a home or the grid. Elroy Air hired Jeremy Hux as CFO as it prepares to go public, and Tesla is turning to Turo to boost adoption of its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system.
Sources: TechCrunch.