Slate Auto, which got here out of stealth mode earlier this 12 months with a shocking – and surprisingly reasonably priced – customizable electrical truck, has raised $700 million to this point.
However lengthy earlier than the EV startup broke cowl, it quietly raised a Sequence A spherical of greater than $100 million in 2023. And whereas Jeff Bezos was concerned in that spherical, as TechCrunch initially reported, he was not alone. A regulatory submitting submitted to the Securities and Change Fee reveals as many as 16 traders had been concerned.
Slauson & Co., a Los Angeles enterprise agency that launched 5 years in the past, is among the few traders in Slate’s Sequence A to talk publicly about why they backed the corporate.
Slauson & Co. accomplice Ajay Relan informed TechCrunch in an unique interview his agency is effectively conscious of the numerous EV startup bankruptcies which have occurred in recent times, in addition to the headwinds coming from the Trump administration for something inexperienced energy-related.
Regardless, Relan mentioned he and his accomplice Austin Clements imagine within the startup’s mission of offering “extra reasonably priced, dependable, and customizable automobiles which might be domestically manufactured.”
Relan and Clements began Slauson & Co. in 2020. Mates since highschool, they each grew up off of Slauson Avenue in South Central Los Angeles, which Relan wryly categorized as being “not essentially recognized for its tech and enterprise capital innovation.”
“But it surely undoubtedly is a supply of cultural capital that will get repackaged and distributed to extra developed areas and different components of the world,” Relan mentioned. Slauson & Co.’s mission is to bridge the hole between these two worlds by funding and empowering individuals who have “traditionally simply not had their perspective represented within the innovation economic system.”
Relan mentioned they obtained turned on to Slate by Jeff Wilkie, the previous Amazon client division CEO who co-founded Re:Construct Manufacturing, an incubator that Slate spun out of. Wilkie, who Relan has recognized since earlier than founding Slauson & Co, first launched them to the secretive venture in 2023.
Relan admits investing in an EV startup is a bit exterior of his agency’s “major themes.” However the duo was intrigued by Slate’s mission to make a extra reasonably priced and approachable automobile.
He was offered on the enterprise after Wilkie launched Slauson & Co. to the Slate group.
The startup was nonetheless only a few dozen folks in early 2023. However these folks had many years of expertise within the automotive trade. CEO Chris Barman spent greater than 20 years at Chrysler, working car line packages, main the Android Automotive integration, and even collaborating with Waymo. Chairman Rodney Copes and chief monetary officer Ryan Inexperienced spent years at Harley-Davidson and Rivian.
Barman significantly impressed the Slauson & Co. companions.
“She has nice imaginative and prescient. She has an excellent status inside the firm she’s labored for earlier than,” Clements mentioned. “She’s no frills, not in regards to the hype. She’s actually about delivering.”
Clements mentioned he and Relan additionally rely closely on style in relation to early-stage investing.
“Do we expect that that is one thing that resonates with what individuals are searching for at this level?” he mentioned. “The concept there aren’t any reasonably priced vehicles, significantly for younger folks, however actually for everyone, and simply the mismatch between affordability of automobiles and what’s obtainable simply didn’t make sense.”
Slate’s truck received’t hit the market till late 2026, however Relan and Clements have already got slightly validation that their eye for style was spot on with Slate: The corporate handed 100,000 refundable reservations in simply two weeks.
In fact, it doesn’t harm to be standing alongside some critical monetary and industrial firepower. Not solely did Bezos put money into that preliminary funding spherical, however Slate additionally courted huge cash from Los Angeles Dodgers proprietor Mark Walter in addition to VC agency Normal Catalyst. (“The companions they had been capable of carry alongside for the journey earlier than and after us had been icing on the cake,” Reman mentioned in an e-mail.)
These backers have helped fill Slate’s coffers to the tune of round $700 million, and the corporate informed TechCrunch that it’s already began on a Sequence C funding spherical. Slauson & Co. additionally invested within the Sequence B; the agency declined to share how a lot it has invested in Slate to this point.
This mixture – the Slate group, the foremost backers, and the chance on the entry degree of the automobile market – left Relan and Clements believing their funding can generate return, even within the notoriously low-margin auto enterprise.
“Now we have to have some deep conviction that that is one thing that would drive very actual returns within the fund,” Clements mentioned, earlier than including with fun: “You recognize, we’re not only a purely philanthropic group.”
