RJ Scaringe has raised greater than $12B throughout three startups and buyers nonetheless need extra

Traders can’t appear to get sufficient of RJ Scaringe or his concepts.

In lower than a decade, the serial entrepreneur finest identified for his EV firm Rivian has raised greater than $12.3 billion from enterprise capital companies, in addition to from strategic and institutional buyers for his three — and counting — startups. If the newest $400 million elevate for his new enterprise Thoughts Robotics is an indicator, buyers are nonetheless fortunately piling in.

Outsized raises for newly minted startups have turn out to be extra widespread in recent times. However these hundred-million-plus seed rounds have typically been reserved for buzzy protection tech startups or AI firms based by former OpenAI or Anthropic workers.

These supersized seeds definitely weren’t flowing towards one thing as area of interest as an electrical micromobility startup. And but in 2025, Scaringe raised $105 million for precisely that — a startup known as Additionally, which he based that very same 12 months. The entire has since surpassed $300 million, with DoorDash amongst its backers.

Jiten Behl, associate at Eclipse and former chief progress officer at Rivian, has spent years watching and studying from Scaringe. His agency is now one in every of Scaringe’s largest backers, main rounds in each Additionally and Thoughts Robotics — Scaringe’s industrial AI and robotics startup that he additionally based final 12 months.

Storytelling and communication are one in every of his superpowers, in response to Behl, who joined Rivian when the corporate had only a handful of workers.

“When RJ explains a sure difficulty, subject, alternative, imaginative and prescient, he simply has this very distinctive skill to speak it so successfully, and it comes throughout so credible,” Behl stated. “He’s not attempting to undersell the problem or oversell the chance, and that’s an artwork.”

Scaringe is not the one serial entrepreneur to repeatedly entice huge quantities of capital, however founders who can elevate billions throughout a number of ventures stay uncommon. A self-professed automotive fanatic who earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT, Scaringe joins a small cadre of entrepreneurs that features Tesla CEO and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anduril and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, and Jack Dorsey, who based Sq. (now known as Block) and Twitter.

The distinction, no less than within the view of some buyers TechCrunch spoke to, is that he’s in a position to separate promoting the thought from promoting himself. “He’s very comfy and assured in his personal persona, and he is not attempting to be an Elon,” Behl stated, noting that many have tried to make the comparability over time.

“It isn’t about him,” one other insider conversant in Scaringe’s firms advised TechCrunch. “Whenever you speak to him, he has enthusiasm in regards to the product that’s utterly exterior.”

After all, there’s confidence and even a little bit ego, the identical supply mused, however “it would not weigh on you.” The supply additionally added that Scaringe has a singular skill to make you are feeling like probably the most particular individual within the room — a sentiment others echoed.

Giving that type of undivided consideration to an investor, provider, or exec at a producer is a problem on the scale Scaringe is making an attempt. He’s operating three firms, typically touring between Palo Alto, Irvine, Rivian’s manufacturing unit in Regular, Illinois, and a second manufacturing unit quickly to open in Georgia. After which there’s household — Scaringe has three sons along with his ex-wife.

Joe Fath, one other associate at Eclipse, credit his open-mindedness and collaborative nature for serving to him entice funding and juggle these related, but disparate companies.

He famous that Scaringe additionally “has the uncommon mixture of being a really nice engineer whereas additionally having an distinctive intuition for product design,” stated Fath, who beforehand labored at a serious Rivian backer, T. Rowe Value. “Only a few founders can function at that degree technically whereas additionally understanding what resonates emotionally with clients — each shoppers and business patrons. That mixture is extremely unusual and has clearly been a part of what makes Rivian’s merchandise, and now Additionally and Thoughts’s, so differentiated.”

The tempo of Scaringe’s fundraising over the previous eight years is especially notable and would not appear to be slowing.

Greater than $11 billion, and by far the most important slice of VC and strategic capital, went into Rivian — most of it between 2018 and its blockbuster IPO in 2021. That is a startling timeline, particularly contemplating the corporate, initially known as Mainstream Motors, had existed since 2009. For years, Rivian operated as a small, unknown entity till its breakout second in late 2018 on the Los Angeles Auto Present, when it revealed prototypes of its all-electric R1T truck and R1S SUV.

The cash quickly flowed, and from each route. In early 2019 and simply a few months after that reveal, Rivian raised a $700 million funding spherical led by Amazon. U.S. automaker Ford would make investments $500 million and make plans to collaborate on a since-scrapped future EV program. Cox Automotive contributed $350 million. Rivian would shut out the 12 months with a $1.3 billion spherical — its fourth in 2019 — led by funds and accounts suggested by T. Rowe Value Associates, with extra participation from Amazon, Ford, and funds managed by BlackRock.

In July 2020, Rivian raised $2.5 billion and one other $2.65 billion six months later. As whispers of an IPO received louder, Rivian closed one other $2.5 billion non-public funding spherical led by Amazon’s Local weather Pledge Fund, D1 Capital Companions, Ford Motor, and funds and accounts suggested by T. Rowe Value Associates Inc. Third Level, Constancy Administration and Analysis Firm, Dragoneer Funding Group, and Coatue additionally participated.

Then the IPO got here. Rivian raised almost $12 billion in gross proceeds after locking in $78 per share. Its market cap hit $100 billion when it debuted on Nasdaq in November 2021. In the present day, it stands at $18.2 billion, a major comedown that additionally displays the broader struggles of the EV sector.

The flexibility to lift that a lot capital, regardless of these headwinds, is outstanding. However Scaringe did not cease with Rivian. If something, the tempo has accelerated. Additionally and Thoughts Robotics have collectively raised greater than $1.3 billion to date, with Thoughts Robotics shifting particularly quick: $115 million in its first 12 months, $500 million in March, and one other $400 million simply this week.

Rivian additionally continues to land notable backers by high-profile offers just like the $5.8 billion three way partnership with Volkswagen Group and a robotaxi partnership valued at as much as $1.25 billion with Uber.

“Now, the large query is, how a lot can he do?” Behl stated. “That is a query [that] already assumes that he is reaching his restrict. The factor is, he would not take a look at it that approach. His perspective is that there’s large worth to be created, there’s large impression to be created, and I simply should do it.”