Maniv Mobility — Investment Thesis & Preferences

01Investment Thesis

Investing in the decarbonization and digitization of transportation, mobility, and energy — backing founders building across EVs, clean energy, autonomous vehicles, fleet software, vehicle cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, and mobility marketplaces.

Exclusion Criteria

Does not invest outside the mobility/transportation/energy ecosystem; avoids purely consumer social, SaaS unrelated to transportation, or sectors without clear connection to how people and goods move.

02Investment Team

MG

Michael Granoff

Founder & Managing Partner

NJ

Nate Jaret

General Partner

MD

Meir Dardashti

Partner

JW

Jake Wieseneck

Partner

HZ

Hillel Zand

Senior Associate

VP

Venki Padmanabhan

Venture Advisor

03F4 Research Brief

Maniv Mobility Research

Investment Thesis

Maniv Mobility is a global early-stage venture capital fund founded in 2016, dedicated to investing in the decarbonization and digitization of transportation, mobility, and energy. The firm was founded by Michael Granoff in Tel Aviv and has expanded to include a New York City office, with portfolio companies now spanning nine countries.

The firm's thesis rests on two macro trends:

A market-led energy transition: Market forces — not ideology — are driving a seismic shift away from fossil fuel propulsion. Demand for decarbonized transportation is accelerating innovation across new vehicle platforms and the materials, silicon, and software needed to power and commercialize them at scale.
The digitization of physical industry: The value chains of automotive, transportation, and logistics are marked by analog processes, data-poor environments, and information asymmetries. Software, data, and connectivity introduce unprecedented efficiency and scalability to these industries.

Maniv has largely moved away from the term 'mobility' internally, preferring 'deep tech, decarbonization and digitization of the transportation sector.'

Stage Focus

Maniv is primarily a seed-stage investor, with occasional pre-seed investments and selective Series A rounds. Founder and Managing Partner Michael Granoff describes Maniv as 'a seed-stage fund at heart that occasionally breaks its own rules.' The firm targets early entry points where it can be the first institutional investor and lead or co-lead the round.

Check Size

Maniv's typical initial check size is $1M–$3M, with follow-on reserves deployed in later rounds as companies scale. The firm targets ownership positions greater than 12%.

Lead Tendency

Maniv is a lead investor by conviction. Portfolio founders consistently describe Maniv as the 'lead investor every founder needs' — Frank Reig (Revel CEO) credited Maniv's deep board-level involvement as instrumental through tough decisions. John Henry Harris (Harbinger CEO) praised Maniv's mobility network access. Orr Danon (Hailo CEO) highlighted Maniv's automotive ecosystem as uniquely valuable. The firm consistently leads or co-leads Seed and Series A rounds.

Recent Activity

Maniv closed its third fund (Maniv III) at $140M in April 2024, bringing total assets under management to approximately $320M. The Fund III investor base is diversified beyond automotive OEMs to include BNP Paribas Personal Finance, Shell Ventures, Enterprise Mobility, Valeo, Jaguar Land Rover's InMotion Ventures, Toyota's Woven Capital, Arval, Ferrovial, ITT Inc., and WEX — representing leasing, fintech, logistics, vehicle maintenance, energy, and fleet management sectors.

Recent investments from Fund III include:

Celadyne (hydrogen fuel cell membranes, Chicago) — Fund III investment
Neologic (AI chip design for data centers and automotive, Israel) — Fund III investment, August 2025
Vammo (e-motorcycle battery swapping, Brazil) — Maniv led the $45M round in October 2025
Circular (recycled plastic marketplace, San Francisco) — Fund III investment
Anaphite (battery dry-coating technology, UK) — Maniv invested October 2024 ($13.7M round)
Fresh Bus (electric intercity bus, India) — Maniv led $10.5M round in August 2024
Engrate (energy integration API, Sweden) — Maniv invested June 2025 (€2.5M round)
Backslash Security (AI-generated code cybersecurity, Israel) — participated in $19M round, February 2026

Portfolio Highlights

Maniv's 40+ company portfolio spans the full mobility stack across nine countries.

Exits and IPOs:

Autotalks — acquired by Qualcomm (2025, reported at $350–400M); V2X communication chipsets
Autofleet — acquired by Element Fleet Management ($110M, 2024); fleet optimization software
Bipi — acquired by RCI Bank and Services (Renault's financing arm); car subscription service
Voyage81 — acquired by Oddity (2023); hyperspectral imaging via smartphone
Otonomo — went public (IPO); vehicle data platform
Arbe — went public (NASDAQ: ARBE); advanced radar for autonomous vehicles
Revel — merged with EQT-backed Voltera to unite EV charging networks (May 2026)

Active Portfolio Highlights:

Hailo — Israeli AI edge chip unicorn, raised $120M+ for GenAI on edge devices without cloud dependency
Harbinger — electric medium-duty truck maker (California), raised $160M+ and has $400M+ in customer orders; acquired Phantom AI (2026)
Nexar — AI vehicle data services for safer, more efficient roadways
Upstream — vehicle cybersecurity and data analytics platform (Škoda partnership)
Turo — world's largest car-sharing marketplace
River — Indian electric two-wheeler OEM (reached 20,000 unit production milestone in 2025)
C2A — vehicle cybersecurity DevOps platform (Daimler Trucks customer)
Nauto — real-time AI fleet safety platform analyzing 1B+ AI-analyzed video miles
RightHand Robotics — autonomous piece-picking for warehouse logistics
Seurat — metal 3D printing for mass manufacturing decarbonization
Intuition Robotics — ElliQ AI companion for elderly (NYT featured, deployed across US)
Fresh Bus — India's premier intercity electric bus service
Terraline — zero-emissions Class 8 long-haul truck
Backslash Security — cybersecurity for AI-generated code and vibe coding

Team

Michael Granoff — Founder & Managing Partner. Founded Maniv in 2016 in Tel Aviv. Deep background in energy policy and venture capital, with singular focus on mobility and transportation transformation.
Nate Jaret — General Partner. Joined as Principal in May 2019, promoted to GP in November 2021. Leads European, Israeli, and international deal flow. Appears frequently as a speaker at mobility and transportation events.
Meir Dardashti — Partner. Joined with corporate innovation background, rapidly mastered venture investing. Hosts the 'Anything that Moves' podcast and leads content and community.
Jake Wieseneck — Partner. Promoted to Partner in June 2026. Based in New York. Previously an integral team member for several years.
Hillel Zand — Senior Associate. Based in Israel. Ex-IDF Unit 8200. Active writer and thinker on mobility, AI, and investment topics.
Venki Padmanabhan — Venture Advisor. Joined October 2024. Brings deep operational and industry expertise to the portfolio.

Advisory Board includes executives from Johnson & Johnson (Supply Chain), Hyundai (former President & CIO), BNY Mellon, Boeing, DoorDash, Ford Credit Europe, and Arval BNP Paribas.

Decision Process

Maniv operates as a partnership, with key decisions made among Michael Granoff, Nate Jaret, Meir Dardashti, and Jake Wieseneck. The firm typically takes board seats in its portfolio companies and maintains deep, long-term involvement through multiple rounds. Deal sourcing is distributed globally, with Nate Jaret covering Europe and Israel and the full team covering the US and emerging markets.

Founder Preferences

Maniv actively targets founders who share a conviction around decarbonization and digitization of mobility. The firm explicitly invites founders to skip introductory market slides: 'if you daydream of a cleaner, safer, more mobile, and more efficient world — you can skip the first five slides of your deck with us.' They value tenacity, collaborative spirit, and big imagination. The firm has backed both technical hardware founders (Hailo, Arbe, Neologic) and software/marketplace founders (Turo, Ridecell, Autofleet), as well as OEM/vehicle founders (Harbinger, River, Terraline).