Podcasts about trucks vc

Reilly Brennan, the godfather of the Autonocast and Trucks VC general partner, returns to the pod for a wide-ranging discussion on the business of robotaxis, how AVs have evolved in the past decade, his latest fund, and some surprising insights into Tesla.

In this episode, Nick Perloff-Giles sits down with Puneeth Meruva, Partner at Trucks VC, a fund which invests in early-stage ideas that make transportation decarbonized, safer and more accessible. With the retrenchment of public dollars in things like electrification and alternatives to private automotives, the private sector is exploring where true creativity and returns are possible, and where policy adaptations can yield scalable change; hear in this conversation where the future dollars of early stage investors might go!

Reilly Brennan, author of the must-read Future of Transportation newsletter and partner at Trucks VC, returns to Tech Cars Machines for a discussion on recent trends in transportation investing. We discuss financing round sizes and valuations, AI in autonomy and robotics, the promise of hydrogen combustion engines, the EV market, and much more.   Host:  … Read More Read More

With Cruise banned from testing and rides in the state of California following new revelations that the firm hid details of a pedestrian crash from the DMV, the gang huddles with Trucks VC partner and the godfather of The Autonocast Reilly Brennan to talk through the issues, impacts and path forward from another sector-defining incident. Plus, Reilly opens his mobility jobs board to startups in the sector.

Bharath Krishnamoorthy has gone from a young rebel to working for one of the world's top M&A law firms, to a startup entrepreneur. His venture, Denim, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Crosslink Capital, REFASHIOND Ventures, Anthemis, and Trucks VC.

Graham Doorley is CEO of Solo Advanced Vehicle Technologies (Solo AVT), who is revolutionizing the freight transportation industry by bringing to market the first clean-sheet, battery-electric heavy truck. Key topics in this conversation include: Why Graham wanted to create Solo AVT The potential for a 500+ mile battery electric truck The complexity of adding automated driving to a conventional trucking platform The benefit of building an electrified trucking platform from scratch Solo AVT's vision for the future Links: Show notes: http://brandonbartneck.com/futureofmobility/grahamdoorley https://soloavt.com/ https://twitter.com/SoloAVT https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamdoorley/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/solo-avt/ Graham's Bio Graham Doorley is a life-long car enthusiast and an entrepreneurial engineer with experience working at future-looking transportation startups like Tesla and Waymo. Graham has eight years of experience as a senior engineer for self-driving systems as part of both Google's self-driving car program and then at Waymo. While at Waymo, Graham was a project lead on the self-driving truck project, starting it with a small inhouse team before it grew into the Waymo Via platform. At Tesla, Graham was responsible for the design, engineering, production, and sourcing of the entire front and rear suspension of the ground-breaking Model S. About Solo AVT Solo Advanced Vehicle Technologies (Solo AVT) is revolutionizing the freight transportation industry by bringing to market the first clean-sheet, battery-electric heavy truck to truly decarbonize the future of freight. Boasting over 500 miles of range as an all-electric vehicle, compatible with any autonomous driving software, and offered via a Truck-as-a-Service model, Solo AVT's hardware and software solutions are designed to maximize efficiency, reduce costs, and improve safety. Solo AVT was founded in 2021, built by alumni from Waymo, Tesla, BMW, Ford, Faraday Futures, Rivian, and more, and backed by leading investors including Trucks VC, Maniv Mobility, and Wireframe Ventures. Follow @SoloAVT on Twitter and LinkedIn. Future of Mobility: The Future of Mobility podcast is focused on the development and implementation of safe, sustainable, effective, and accessible mobility solutions, with a spotlight on the people and technology advancing these fields. linkedin.com/in/brandonbartneck/ brandonbartneck.com/futureofmobility/ Edison Manufacturing: At Edison Manufacturing, our specialty is building and assembling highly complex mobility products in annual quantities of ten to tens of thousands utilizing an agile, robust, and capital-light approach.

Reilly Brennan, General Partner, Trucks VC joined Grayson Brulte on The Road To Autonomy Podcast to discuss investing in the future.The conversation begins with Reilly and Grayson discussing what is going to happen when consolidation begins in the autonomous vehicle industry.This is a period of consolidation because you have essentially a lot of the robo-taxi ideas turned into commercial applications, probably around logistics and parcels. – Reilly BrennanThen there are the startups such as Bear Flag Robotics (acquired by John Deere – August 2021) and Gatik that have been focused on specific applications since day one. Shifting the conversation to industrial use cases, Grayson asks Reilly what his thoughts are on the industrial market as it relates to autonomy.One of those specific industrial markets is mining. With global mining companies hitting record profits and Rio Tinto recently announcing a $7.7 billion half-year dividend, Grayson asks Reilly if a global mining company could potentially acquire an autonomy startup.No doubt. Electrification and AV to those specific players is as much on their mind as the way you would think about DHL, UPS, Amazon, etc adding autonomy and electrification to theirs. It's just a component of how they make money or will make more money in the future. – Reilly BrennanThere is a growing segment of the startup market has is beginning to focus on the opportunities in the industrial market. One aspect of the startup industrial market that is booming is the autonomous trucking industry.The autonomous trucking industry is generating revenue and shoring up the supply chain through automation, as consumers battle ever-increasing inflation. Reilly rightly points out that this industry is heavily dependent on partnerships to scale and return capital to shareholders and investors.One of the key partnerships in the future will be railroads. Grayson makes a prediction that in the next 18 to 24 months, a railroad will buy an autonomous trucking company.Another segment of the industrial market is maritime. Looking at investment opportunities in the space, Reilly is currently studying hydrography and shipping routes. There is an emerging opportunity to map waterways which will increase shipping efficiencies.The depths within ports can change so much that it impacts how much payload you can take. – Reilly BrennanAs maritime shipping routes get optimized, it's time to allow autonomous trucks to enter and operate at ports.The partnership dynamics of autonomous trucking is arguably one of the most important parts of the business. In fact, we have seen some of the logistics companies take investments from entities that own or have access to those ports for that specific reason.It's a fundamental question that there is not any one company, even Waymo that can lay claim to a leadership position for those specific pickup points. That is a big opportunity and in fact, it's probably more important than saying you are running 10,000 trips a day on this route in Texas.If someone came to us and said if I secured the access to these specific vital ports in the United States, I think that is actually saying something a great deal.– Reilly BrennanStaying on the topic of Waymo, Grayson asks Reilly if Waymo will eventually split into two separate companies: Waymo Via focused on autonomous trucking and Waymo One focused on autonomous vehicles.It has always been a question in my mind whether we were at the point in this area of autonomy where you could have a multi-silhouette autonomy company. – Reilly BrennanIs Waymo the only company that could pull off a multi-silhouette approach to autonomy, because of Alphabet's continued long-term financing commitment? It looks that way as Aurora has seemingly shifted a majority of its focus to autonomous trucking.For companies that don't have a Google as a supporter and an investor, I think you probably have to pick one thing you are world-class in. – Reilly BrennanWithout an Alphabet-like financing partner, does Aurora get to a crossroads where they decide to sell off their autonomous vehicle division and focus solely on trucking? It's a possibility as the autonomous vehicle market is beginning to consolidate around Argo AI, Cruise, and Waymo.Then there is May Mobility which is focused on structured routes. Pick-up and drop-offs from airports are a huge opportunity that the autonomous vehicle industry is currently not exploiting. The true opportunity for airports and AVs is in resort towns with limited traffic and high-amounts of passenger traffic during predefined periods of time throughout the year.Looking at the overall investment landscape, Reilly shares a story and his insights into how the team at Trucks VC uncovers potential investment opportunities.When we look at companies, we tend to not really look for ideas, we kind of just wait for great founders to reveal something to us and then we get onboard. – Reilly BrennanWrapping up the conversation, Reilly and Grayson discuss the circular economy and the future of electric vehicles.Recorded on Tuesday, March 1, 2021.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today on the show, Oliver interviews Puneeth Meruva, Associate at Trucks VC about their latest report: The Three Axes of Micromobility: Supply Chains, Distribution and Maintenance about the often unseen world of getting Micromobility into the hands of consumers. This is a topic that hasn’t received much coverage to date, so it was a fascinating conversation fully of nitty-gritty and relatively technical details about the opportunities for development and investment in the micromobility ecosystem. Specifically they dig into: - A recap of Trucks VC, their thesis and other portfolio companies in the Micromobility space- Puneeths background and how he got there- What the research was about, and why Trucks undertook it- Key findings in the fields of components, distribution, maintenance etc- Whether timelines for new product development are getting shorter vs longer and why- Who the interesting businesses are in the distribution and maintenance space- Future opportunities in design and tech both in vehicles and business models (including a reference to www.nimbus.green - one of the companies Oliver is most excited about at the moment)- A discussion about vehicle platforms, and whether Puneeth agree’s with Horace’s thesis that these vehicles will become computing platforms.The report itself can be found here [https://www.trucks.vc/blog/the-three-axes-of-micromobility-supply-chains-distribution-and-maintenance]

This week Oliver interviews Chinmay Malaviya and Charlie Depman, cofounders of Ridepanda, about their efforts to build a better customer journey for purchasing owned micromobility. The platform is relatively new, but it hits on a very relevant need. Thanks to Reilly Brennan from Trucks VC for putting us onto them. Specifically we dig into: - Their backgrounds at Bird, Scoot and Lime and how that led them to starting this business. - The core customer needs that they’re trying to solve- The importance of trusted reviews and reliable servicing for customers- What matters to customers, and why brand is far further down the list than expected- What early traction they’re seeing- How COVID 19 has impacted the buyers guide- Their fundraising journey and what they’re seeing for Micromobility related startups in general.

In a time when delivery and e-commerce are changing our lives, what transportation trends should be on our radar? A special one-on-one episode with Reilly Brennan, founding general partner of the seed-stage venture capital firm Trucks VC.

Listen to Reilly Brennan, co-founder and partner at early-stage venture fund Trucks VC, discuss his investments in the transportation and autonomy space.  Reilly describes how his investment criteria and portfolio have changed over time and shares his thoughts on the Future of Transportation. Learn more about Trucks and Reilly and his must-read weekly newsletter, The Future of Transportation.  More … Continue reading Reilly Brennan, General Partner, Trucks VC →

Listen to Reilly Brennan, co-founder and partner at early-stage venture fund Trucks VC, discuss his investments in the transportation and autonomy space.  Reilly describes how his investment criteria and portfolio have changed over time and shares his thoughts on the Future of Transportation. Learn more about Trucks and Reilly and his must-read weekly newsletter, The Future of Transportation.  More about GTK, your host Ali Tabibian, our conferences, publications and subscriptions thereto. If links aren’t active in your app, please go to www.gtkpartners.com. A raw transcript is here.

The Autonocast took advantage of its on-stage panel at SXSW to discuss one of the few issues that has real life-and-death consequences: the consequences of language used to describe automated driving technology. Whether caused by sensationalism, ignorance or just laziness, language that oversells publicly-available driver assistance systems and conflates it with autonomy can actively contribute to dangerous uses that actually endanger peoples lives. Kirsten, Alex and Ed are joined by the "Godfather" of the Autonocast, Reilly Brennan of Trucks VC and the Future of Transportation Newsletter, as they deconstruct this insidious problem and start to look for solutions to it.

The second half of our conversations from the Micromobility California Conference really gets into the meat of The Great Scooter Boom, discussing the good, the bad and the ugly of the hottest trend in mobility technology. That means everything from unit economics and infrastructure to charger fraud, theft and regulatory compliance. To tackle all this we're joined by an all-star group of scooter mavens: Reilly Brennan, of Trucks VC (and godfather of The Autonocast), Michael Naka of RideReport and the Movements newsletter, and Victor Pontis of ScooterMap.

On today’s episode we do a very quick recap of the inaugural 2019 Micromobility Summit and then turn our attention to talk through what early stage investment in micromobility looks like with Reilly Brennan of Trucks Venture Capital (@reillybrennan).He is a founding general partner at Trucks (trucks.vc), a seed-stage venture capital fund for entrepreneurs changing the future of transportation. Reilly holds a teaching appointment at Stanford University and is influential newsletter Future of Transportation is a radar for what’s happening in transportation. Prior to Trucks, Reilly was Executive Director for Stanford’s automotive research program, Revs. He is very well known in the transport technology space.In this episode we discuss:- Trucks VC and how it’s adjusted it’s thinking about micromobility in its search for the companies that will power the future of transportation.- How he thinks about the evolution of the supply chain in the micromobility sector, and who will be looking to get involved.- Where he sees parallels between the existing early stages of micromobility and the autonomous vehicle space a few years ago.- What opportunities he is looking for in the space, and his thesis of where value will accrue.We also discuss the new Micromobility VC syndicate on AngelList that will be syndicating interesting deals in the micromobility space out to early stage investors. If you are an accredited investor and would like to hear about the deals that Horace, Oliver and others are coming across and backing, please find us on AngelList and apply.

Today on the podcast we have Reilly Brennan, a founding general partner of Trucks VC, a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on transportation. He also holds a teaching appointment at Stanford University and is the author of the Future of Transportation newsletter. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/smarter-cars/support

Reilly Brennan of Trucks VC (http://trucks.vc) invited us over to discuss early stage transportation startups. Reilly is a seed Venture Capitalist in the sector and also a Lecturer at Stanford. HIs passion is helping founders build their dream companies.