With a new round of funding, a Fort Worth startup is looking to make the city a hub of “energy 2.0.”
Electric motor systems company Linear Labs announced landing $6 million in a new funding round that included Champion Hill, Lowercarbon Capital, Kindred Ventures, Gen Fukunaga, Duke Angel Network, Spike Ventures, and Uber alumni investing group Moving Capital as backers.
Launched in 2014 by Brad Hunstable and his father, TechFW-incubated Linear Labs originally set out to develop an electric motor that could provide efficient water and electricity to rural Africa and South America. The company now produces large electric motors for a variety of industries, as well as Hunstable Electric Turbines aimed at the micro-mobility market. Earlier this year, it also launched a new line of smaller, personal motors for innovators to tinker with.
“Our mission is resonating not only with the best minds in Silicon Valley, but also the growing technology hub that is the Fort Worth area,” Hunstable said in a statement. "We’re making a global impact through smarter utilization of energy as we enter the beginning of Energy 2.0, with a motor that is as big a breakthrough in energy as any major battery breakthrough.”
With the new funding Linear Labs plans expand its manufacturing, infrastructure and logistics capabilities, as well as advance its research and development in the areas of automation and robotics.
The move comes as Linear Labs is looking to ramp up production of its electric motors to produce 100,000 in 2021, with a goal of producing 1 million by 2022.
In addition to expanding its production capabilities, Linear Labs is also expanding its board of directors. The company announced software-defined networking services company Masergy Communications chairman and CEO Chris MacFarland would be joining its board.
“I can see that Linear Labs is going to effect change on an international scale in multiple industries,” MacFarland said in a statement. “Amazing things are just around the corner, including incredible economic possibilities with Linear Labs’ new U.S. production facilities.”
The new funding announcement comes on the heels of a first-of-its-kind grant the city of Fort Worth awarded to Linear Labs in June. The nearly $70 million grant will help the company move its overseas operations to the city, where it currently operates an 11,000 square-foot facility.
The move also includes investments in R&D and facility improvements to its planned site at the Alliance Texas Mobility Innovation District on the part of Linear Labs, as well as the creation of an estimated 3,170 full-time jobs by 2027.
Last year, the company also landed a $4.5 million funding round led by Science Inc. and Kindred Venture.
“We have all the makings of an incredible place and then combine that with a city… who are thinking innovative, you have the opportunity to make it into something special,” Hunstable told NTX Inno in June. “We viewed it as there’s so much happening here… where you have this much density of electrification happening, it was natural place to be.”
Check out NTX Inno's 2019 profile of Linear Labs here.
