Trucks Venture Capital announced it has launched two funds to make transportation safer, cleaner and more inclusive.
Trucks Venture Fund 2 (TVF2), its new core fund, recently closed on $52,525,252, an amount based on an infatuation with repeating numbers. The fund is backed by seven large global partners — three auto OEMs, three auto suppliers and one communications company that have not been disclosed — to create a knowledge network for future transportation entrepreneurs.
The second fund, Trucks Venture’s follow-on Trucks Growth Fund, will focus on later-stage investments within the firm’s portfolio.
Trucks Venture’s team consists of a variety of transportation-related talent and tenure, including general partner, Reilly Brennan, who has decades of experience within the auto industry, general partner, Jeffrey Schox, who has past electric vehicle engineering experience with General Motors (NYSE:GM) and senior associate, Puneeth Meruva, who has developed software for companies like Uber (NYSE:UBER) and BMW.
Since 2015, Trucks Venture has made impactful investments in several companies with TVF2, including May Mobility, an autonomous mobility company; Aperia, a tire inflation technology; Axle Payments, a freight factoring company; Coord, a mobility platform; Gatik, an automated urban logistics company; Joby, an electric air taxi startup, Refraction, a last-mile robotics company; and Universal Hydrogen, a hydrogen storage solution for aviation, who has recently closed a $20.5 million Series A round led by Playground Global.
Trucks Venture also invested in Deepscale, which was acquired by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) in 2019 for an undisclosed amount.
‘No manels’
Trucks Venture is also invested in gender equity within the transportation space, creating a “no manels” policy — Trucks Venture’s male team members do not participate in group panels without a woman also on stage taking part.
In support of the policy, Trucks Venture has created its “ultimate list of women transportation leaders,” consisting of female investors, journalists, consultants and executives who can be used as resources for event coordinators.
A third of Trucks Venture’s portfolio consists of female-founded companies.
In a statement to FreightWaves, Brennan detailed the impactful guidance Trucks Venture has received from its general partner, Kathryn Schox.
“Kate Schox is the core part of our team that assesses founders, team dynamics and helps clarify messaging,” he explained. “She’s a cultural anthropologist and has been at the forefront of developing team dynamics in startups. She also created our ‘cleaner, safer, more accessible’ qualification requirement for our startup filter.”
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