Trucks VC is launching a $70 million fund to find the next big batch of transportation startups

Trucks Venture Capital co-founder Reilly Brennan has over a decade of experience in autonomous vehicle technology, electric air taxis, EV charger maintenance, mobility data platforms, and more. seeks out – and invests in – entrepreneurs who are building the future of transportation.

Now Brennan, along with partners Jeffrey Schox, Kathryn Schox and Puneeth Meruva, is looking for the next batch of early-stage startups and has a new $70 million fund to help build them. Trucks did not name the investors in the fund, but Brennan noted that there are seven strategic limited partners, including an auto supplier, a tire manufacturer, an insurance company and an airline.

This is a San Francisco-based firm the third fund and the largest to date.

Trucks VC plans to make about 30 seed investments from the fund, writing checks between $500,000 and $2 million at seed and pre-seed stages. Truckers typically aim for around 10% ownership as part of their strategy.

Truckers has already invested in several startups from the new fund, including charger installation-as-a-service startup Treehouse, a zero-emission jet company JetZerolow-cost high-frequency kinetic launch firm Auriga Space and Carvisdeveloped AI master technology to support mechanics.

The firm’s investment strategy has evolved quite a bit since it was founded in 2014, but Brennan noted that it’s still the same as when it started. In particular, it has never looked for startups that fill a niche or sector.

“Our core strategy is so good that the best founders should be talking to you early on, hey, in this fund I want to look for four hydrogen companies and four EV charging companies; we tend to do that,” he explained.

A noticeable change in strategy occurred about six years ago. Instead of coming up with an idea and looking for a founder, Trucks changed course and focused on great founders.

“When we came up with an idea and then found a founder working on it, we just tended to make bad decisions because we were looking for some kind of idea, a founder, to confirm our bias,” he said. “We realized we were seeing 100 to 150 new companies a month and thought why not wait and see if there was a great founder who opened us up to a new idea we hadn’t thought of. I think in some ways it gave us flexibility to start things like aviation or aerospace that weren’t part of our mission in 2015.”

Some of Trucks’ past investments include Bear Flag Robotics, which was acquired by John Deere; and Zendrive, which Intuit acquired last year. Trucks has also invested in Joby Aviation, an autonomous Gatik company, and Skyryse, an automated flight control startup.