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The Big One: An EV startup not named Tesla or Rivian aims for the spotlight, though hurdles remain
Atlis Motor Vehicles, an electric vehicle startup based in Mesa, Arizona, said this week that it had gained conditional approval from the Nasdaq Stock Market to list its shares, but public financial documents show that company still faces several hurdles before reaching production, AZ Inno reports.
AMV, which was founded in 2016, is still years away from putting one of its electric trucks on the road, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission dated Aug. 26.
The company predicts it will need an additional $418 million over the course of four years to finalize its prototype, obtain regulatory approvals and scale production before reaching profitability. To date the company has raised about $32 million.
“Uncertainty exists as to whether our business will have sufficient funds over the next 12 months, thereby making an investment in Atlis speculative,” the company wrote in the filing.
CEO Mark Hanchett founded AMV in 2016 with a grand vision of becoming the next electric vehicle luminary, offering its own electric battery cells and packs, rapid charging stations and pickup trucks designed to weather rugged work environments.
Other EV startups, such as Tesla and Arizona-based Nikola Corp., rely on other companies to provide the critical battery cells.
Six years after its founding, AMV claims a self-determined valuation of $1.9 billion, according to its fundraising website. There has been no independent valuation of the AMV shares, the company wrote in the Aug. 26 filing.
“Any valuation of Atlis at this stage is pure speculation,” the company wrote in the Aug. 26 filing.
Read the full story in AZ Inno here.
Startups to Watch
- Milwaukee startup Frontdesk, a short-term rental platform that manages apartment buildings to offer hotel-like experience for users, raised $13 million this week. The round was led by JetBlue Technology Ventures, the venture capital arm of JetBlue Airways. The startup operates more than 1,000 short-term rental units across more than 150 different buildings in U.S. markets.
- St. Petersburg-based LunaJoy offers a digital care clinic for women throughout their life span, starting with puberty throughout perimenopause. It provides in-network therapy, medication management and coaching, an has partnered with industry giants Cigna and Optum and offers physicians, therapists and coaches who are all trained in mental health. The startup, backed by Y Combinator, has over 500 customers.
- YWhales Enterprises, a St. Lous startup led by Jay Steinback, the former CEO of Rothman Furniture, is helping companies dive into Web3. The startup, which raised $5 million in funding, will help create communities focused on Web3 education and investing in Web3 companies, and help brands utilize Web3 technology.
- Feast & Fettle, a Providence, Rhode Island-based food delivery company that offers premium, high-quality meals to your door, is expanding into Connecticut after raising $1.2 million. The startup, which currently employs over 150 people in Rhode Island, was named the fastest-growing company in Rhode Island by Inc. Magazine.
- Philadelphia-based PurpleLab raised $40 million for its no-code analytics platform used by life sciences companies and other health care firms. The company was founded by CEO Mark Brosso, who previously founded Health Market Science, a health care information company acquired by LexisNexis in 2015.
- L.A. startup Subject wants to be the Netflix for high school education. The on-demand learning platform offers traditional classes like biology, with a few non-traditional ones sprinkled in as well, like financial literacy and cryptocurrency 101. With more than $34 million in funding, Subject's courses are now available in more than 100 schools across the country.
- VoyceMe, led by Dylan Telano, a senior at Skidmore College in New York, is developing a platform for Japanese comics. The startup, which just raised $2.5 million, built an online platform and app where authors can share manga – Japanese-style comics – and webtoons, digital comics that originated in South Korea.
- Lemon Perfect, an Atlanta-based water startup backed by Beyonce, landed another famous face to its team. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts will now serve as a "brand champion" for the startup and help promote the brand in the Philadelphia region. In April, Lemon Perfect announced the closing of a $31 million Series A round.
- Stealthy Bay Area startup TigerEye raised $30 million in Series A funding. The secretive startup says it "will help companies make better strategic decisions," but offered up few other details on its product. TigerEye announced it has added Garry Tan to its board of directors. Tan is currently a managing partner at Initialized Capital, which co-led TigerEye's new deal, and will soon become CEO of Y-Combinator.
- Otolith Labs, a D.C. company developing a wearable device for treating chronic vertigo sufferers, raised $20 million. Its backers include Mark Cuban and Morningside Ventures. Otolith has developed a headband that uses its proprietary technology to stimulate the brain’s vestibular system and alleviate symptoms of vertigo.
A Fund to Watch
Baltimore's RareBreed Ventures is partnering with two other venture capital firms as part of an innovative fundraising arrangement that will allow smaller investors to contribute to large funds, according to Maryland Inno.
RareBreed founder McKeever (Mac) Conwell said the new initiative will pool many small investments into a single, larger entity, known as a special purpose vehicle or SPV, that will exist separately from the three participating VC firms, which besides Rarebreed include Portland, Oregon's Rogue Women's Fund and VITALIZE Venture Capital in Chicago.
The idea is that, by creating a single entity that's separate from the three funds, it will allow for lower minimum investments than what is required under regulations for relatively large funds. That potentially opens up a new source of capital and makes investing more accessible to a larger audience.
The three companies hope to raise $10 million in total through the initiative.
Weird and Wired: Furniture ... for rabbits
Portland entrepreneur Jeni Nguyen wanted a piece of furniture that would work for her and her beloved bunnies Elvis and Betty, but couldn't find anything that worked. So she created Bink Rabbit Goods, a company dedicated to elevating products for bunnies and those who love them.
The first product is a piece of furniture that is stylish but also functional for holding a litter box and containing the endless supply of hay rabbits require. It comes in two sizes, a credenza and bench. She focused on living room furniture since rabbits need large areas to run and in most homes the living room is the largest room used for free-range house bunnies.
