Trucks Venture Capital | Investment Thesis & Preferences

Trucks Venture Capital

www.trucks.vc · San Francisco, CA

“Trucks funds entrepreneurs building the future of transportation across three mandates: decarbonized, safer, and more accessible. They back seed/pre-seed companies across autonomous vehicles, EVs, aviation, micromobility, aerospace, maritime, and logistics — any transportation sector at the frontier.”

Trucks Venture Capital Research

Investment Thesis

Trucks Venture Capital funds the entrepreneurs building the future of transportation. The firm's thesis is elegantly simple: back the founders who are making transportation decarbonized, safer, and more accessible. Founded roughly a decade ago and headquartered in San Francisco, Trucks has evolved from an early focus on automobiles and trucks to covering the full spectrum of transportation — autonomous vehicles, aviation, micromobility, aerospace, maritime, rail, and everything within those ecosystems. The $5T global transportation industry is one of the most multi-disciplinary sectors in the world, and Trucks sees it as a generational opportunity.

The LPs backing Trucks Venture Fund 3 (TVF3) represent the largest collection of global transportation players and investors anywhere in the world, including vehicle manufacturers, Tier 1 suppliers, tire manufacturers, insurance providers, rental car agencies, and airline carriers. This LP base gives Trucks and its founders a powerful support network with deep operational expertise across the transportation value chain.

Stage Focus

Trucks focuses primarily on seed and pre-seed stage investments. With TVF3, the firm plans to make approximately 30 initial seed investments. They prefer to be early — often among the first institutional capital in a company — targeting about 10% ownership stakes at entry.

Check Size

Typical investment range is $500,000 to $2,000,000 at seed and pre-seed stage. Trucks writes focused checks and aims to lead or co-lead rounds, targeting meaningful ownership positions that allow them to add value as active partners.

Lead Tendency

Trucks typically leads or co-leads rounds. Their strategy of targeting ~10% ownership stakes indicates they set price and take board or observer seats. They are an active early-stage lead investor, not a passive follower.

Fund Status

Trucks Venture Fund 3 (TVF3) closed on $70M in December 2024 / January 2025. This is the firm's largest fund to date. Previous funds include Trucks Venture Fund 2 ($52.5M, 2021) and a Trucks Growth Fund (2021). TVF3 is actively deploying.

Decision Process

Trucks uses a consensus-building model across the partnership. Each partner must raise their hand at each stage of the evaluation process for a company to advance in the funnel. They have a structured risk-unpacking methodology developed over the years. Decision timelines are approximately 4-5 weeks.

Founder Preferences

Trucks backs entrepreneurs who are building transformative transportation companies — founders with deep domain expertise in transportation, automotive, aerospace, energy, or adjacent sectors. They seek founders aligned with the mission of making transportation cleaner, safer, and more accessible. Technical founders with relevant engineering or operational backgrounds are common in the portfolio.

Geographic Focus

Trucks invests primarily in the United States, with a concentration of portfolio companies in the SF Bay Area. However, they have made selective global investments in companies addressing transportation challenges in Africa (BasiGo — electric buses in Kenya), India (River — electric mopeds), Europe (Cling Systems — Li-ion battery recycling, Verne — hydrogen storage), and Canada (RailVision).

Sector Depth

The Trucks portfolio spans six core areas of transportation innovation:

Autonomous Vehicles & Robotics: Autonomous trucking (Starsky Robotics, Terraline), autonomous logistics (Gatik), autonomous agriculture (Bear Flag Robotics), robotic construction (Teleo), robotic washing (Plover), flight automation (Skyryse), autonomous fleets (May Mobility, NuTonomy)
Electrification & Clean Energy: EV charging infrastructure (ChargerHelp!, Treehouse, Bidirectional Energy, Stable Auto), battery management (Zitara), battery recycling (Cling Systems), commercial EV components (Estes Energy, Bingo Tech), electric aircraft (JetZero, Stralis Aircraft), hydrogen (Universal Hydrogen, Verne)
Micromobility: Last-mile EVs (Skip, River), smart micromobility (Drop Mobility), electric mopeds, premium micro-EVs (amble)
Safety & Intelligence: Driver safety analytics (Zendrive), fleet intelligence (Nauto), vehicle validation (Ottometric, Edge Case Research), perception sensors (Tangram Vision, AEye), GNSS positioning (Xona Space Systems), over-the-air updates (Aurora Labs)
Logistics & Supply Chain: Route optimization (Wise Systems), freight financial services (Denim), same-day delivery (Swyft), automated logistics (Gatik), transit infrastructure (Token Transit, Meter Feeder, Route Reports)
Aviation & Aerospace: Urban air mobility (Joby Aviation), zero-emissions jets (JetZero), hydrogen aviation (Stralis, Universal Hydrogen), low-cost kinetic launch (Auriga Space), space-based GNSS (Xona Space Systems)

Portfolio Highlights

Trucks has an exceptional exit track record for an early-stage fund:

Bear Flag Robotics — Acquired by John Deere; automated agricultural vehicle technology
Joby Aviation — Public on NYSE (JOBY); electric air taxis, safe and affordable air travel
NuTonomy — Acquired by Delphi (now part of Motional); software for automated fleets
Roadster — Acquired by CDK Global for $360M; e-commerce platform for vehicle dealerships
Zendrive — Acquired by Intuit; AI-powered driver safety analytics
DeepScale — Acquired by Tesla; fused perception software for autonomous vehicles
Coord — Acquired by Google; mobility data platform
Denim — Acquired by Truckstop; freight brokerage fintech platform
Teleo — Acquired by Havoc AI; tele-operated construction vehicles
Revolv — Acquired by Zenobē; EV fleet adoption platform
Zitara — Acquired by Fortescue; battery management systems
AEye — Public on NASDAQ (LIDR); advanced vision LIDAR for autonomous vehicles

Team

Reilly Brennan, Partner — Co-founder who grew up in Michigan and started in the auto industry through a car magazine internship during undergrad. Over two decades in transportation, he co-founded Trucks, authors the widely-read FoT (Future of Transportation) newsletter, and championed investments in May Mobility, Roadster, and Edge Case Research. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reillybrennan/
Jeffrey Schox, Partner — Grew up outside Detroit, studied mechanical and electrical engineering, and worked as an engineer on the original electric vehicle at General Motors. Was an angel investor in Cruise through his patent law firm. Led Trucks investments in Universal Hydrogen, Skyryse, Joby Aviation, and Refraction. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschox/
Kathryn Schox, Partner — Grew up on the East Coast, studied anthropology and business, and was COO of a company featured as an Inc. 5000 fastest-growing company five years in a row. Developed the Trucks mission of 'decarbonized, safer, and more accessible' transportation. Led investments in ChargerHelp!, Gatik, Bear Flag Robotics, and Wise Systems. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/k8schox/
Puneeth Meruva, Partner — Grew up in Germany and Indiana, studied EECS at MIT. Prior to Trucks, developed safety software at Uber, BMW, and Microsoft Research and researched perception systems at MIT's Distributed Robotics Group and CMU's Biorobotics Lab. Authors the Trucks FoT research briefs and writes Flywheel, a leading authority on the owned micromobility market. Named Partner in May 2023. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmeruva/
Jason Townsend, CFO — Grew up in Michigan, studied computer engineering, and worked at Intel. Founder of Resonant Venture Partners (invested in the first round of Duo Security) and Townsend Mertz, a real estate fund investing in commercial equity and debt. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/townsendvc/

Intelligence Infrastructure

Trucks operates FoT (Future of Transportation), an intelligence arm that monitors emerging transportation founders and ideas. They track approximately 1,000 inbound companies per year through their proprietary Trucks Radar data platform, built under Puneeth Meruva's leadership. This system gives them a data-driven edge in identifying the most promising transportation startups globally.

Anti-Thesis

Trucks does not invest in companies that cannot clearly articulate how they make transportation decarbonized, safer, or more accessible. They avoid pure consumer apps, general enterprise software, and healthcare/biotech plays. Transportation must be the primary application.