It's not an easy time to raise money for electric car startups, especially given how many have failed or nearly failed. But Los Angeles-based Harbinger pulled it off with a very focused approach to electrifying commercial trucks.
The prize is a $100 million Series B led by Leitmotif, a new US fund co-founded by early Tesla investor Capricorn Investor Group and Volkswagen's former head of M&A. Tiger Global and team were also involved. Mobility venture firm ManivBoth of them are current investors.
“We know how the EV space is going. We know decades ago it was a mess of bodies and garbage,” Harbinger CEO John Harris said in an interview with TechCrunch. “So we're very focused on our niche and we really try to be confident in what we're going to say before we say we're going to do it.”
Established in 2022. A group of former Canoo and QuantumScape employeesHarbinger plans to make a modular all-electric chassis for medium-duty trucks.
Then…just do it.
Harbinger has managed to keep its focus at a time when investors have raised billions of dollars in ventures that claim they will create hundreds of EVs. For example, Arrival started in a similar sector as Harbinger. But when it comes to publicity, the Arrival claims it will reinvent automotive production. called microfactories.He planned to create buses and invented Uber and taxi. It can even work on a plane..
Arrival is now bankrupt. Harbinger closes out of Series B and is about to enter production.
“Harbinger is a very skilled team of operators with a lot of relevant experience with scar tissue and their previous roles,” Leitmotif co-founder Jens Wiese said in an interview. “They're laser-focused on that part and getting the product right.”
Harris says focusing on one product not only allows his startup to thrive; It helps make the product better, Harris said.
As an example, Harris pointed to the battery packs that power the Harbiner's hull. Instead of encasing them in stamped steel – and that could lead to dangerous leakage of the batteries – Harbinger buried the entire enclosure using 6,500 tons of pressure to kill it.
Harris said Harbinger could only invest in such a specialized tool because it didn't need to spread its spending across many other products. The result: battery packs that cost only one-twentieth the cost of normal.
Investments like these have allowed Harbinger to make its chassis more affordable from the start, rather than relying on large scale to reach attractive unit economies.
Harbinger is primarily selling to CFOs of shipping companies, so Michael Granoff, managing partner at Maniv, said it was a daunting proposition.
“The part they follow, They don't often replace their ships; When you think about it, I've been doing it for years. And math is so compelling and inescapable. Granoff said.
Granoff sees Harbinger's opportunity as his company invests more in innovation than any other company. Harbinger's Series B is also the only investment round in Maniv's second fund that is not company-led.
“Because we've basically delivered a compelling unit economy, (investors) are coming in that wouldn't normally be here like Tiger,” Harris said. “Ignoring Tesla, we have industry-leading unit economics, but maybe in another 12 to 18 months.”