New autonomous vehicle boom outpaces 2016 as startup pitches hit record
Early-stage venture firm Trucks VC has received pitches from 81 new autonomous vehicle startups this year, more than during the 2016–2017 boom. The firm attributes the surge to AI foundation models.
Trucks VC, an early-stage venture capital firm, says it has fielded pitches from 81 new autonomous vehicle (AV) startups so far in 2026. That is two-thirds more than last year and more than in any year of the industry's boom a decade ago. The firm argues that a second, even bigger AV wave is under way, driven by advances in artificial intelligence.
Trucks VC partner Puneeth Meruva said the industry long tried to move from so-called AV 1.0 to AV 2.0, a fully end-to-end architecture. In his view, foundation models now provide the technical basis for such systems. These models generalize well across different environments and scenarios, which could make autonomous vehicles cheaper and faster to deploy. Powerful open-source models, such as Nvidia's Alpamayo and Qwen's general-purpose vision-language-action models, have made it easier still to launch a startup. Meruva said the firm regularly sees startups deploy within a few months on less than $1 million raised.
The pitches included projects in construction, warehousing, agriculture and mining, but a growing number are pure-play robotaxi businesses, some positioning themselves as direct competitors to Waymo, the self-driving unit of Alphabet. Meruva believes smaller players can find room by competing in specific regions or on particular types of routes. He expects even more AV startups to pitch the firm next year.
Other industry deals
Re:Build, a Massachusetts-based manufacturing accelerator, raised $2.1 billion in an investment led by General Catalyst and JPMorganChase's Strategic Investment Group. Autonomous vehicle technology startup Bedrock Robotics raised $600 million at a $4.1 billion valuation. Separately, Waymo and Toyota agreed a manufacturing partnership: Toyota will build AV-ready bZ4X vehicles with Waymo's self-driving system at its factory in Japan, for robotaxi services in Japan, the U.K. and other international markets.
GM also agreed to a $220 million settlement with 36 states over allegations that it illegally sold private driving behavior and location data to data brokers.
