Slate Auto, which got here out of stealth mode earlier this 12 months with a stunning – and surprisingly inexpensive – customizable electrical truck, has raised $700 million so far.
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 Trade Fee exhibits as many as 16 buyers have been concerned.
Slauson & Co., a Los Angeles enterprise agency that launched 5 years in the past, is likely one of the few buyers in Slate’s Sequence A to talk publicly about why they backed the corporate.
Slauson & Co. associate Ajay Relan advised 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 associate Austin Clements imagine within the startup’s mission of offering “extra inexpensive, dependable, and customizable autos which can be domestically manufactured.”
Relan and Clements began Slauson & Co. in 2020. Pals since highschool, they each grew up off of Slauson Avenue in South Central Los Angeles, which Relan wryly categorized as being “not essentially identified for its tech and enterprise capital innovation.”
“However it 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 received turned on to Slate by Jeff Wilkie, the previous Amazon shopper division CEO who co-founded Re:Construct Manufacturing, an incubator that Slate spun out of. Wilkie, who Relan has identified since earlier than founding Slauson & Co, first launched them to the secretive mission 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 inexpensive and approachable automotive.
He was offered on the enterprise after Wilkie launched Slauson & Co. to the Slate workforce.
The startup was nonetheless just some dozen folks in early 2023. However these folks had a long time of expertise within the automotive business. CEO Chris Barman spent greater than 20 years at Chrysler, working automobile 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 incredible fame inside the firm she’s labored for earlier than,” Clements mentioned. “She’s no frills, not concerning the hype. She’s actually about delivering.”
Clements mentioned he and Relan additionally rely closely on style with regards to early-stage investing.
“Do we predict that that is one thing that resonates with what individuals are in search of at this level?” he mentioned. “The concept that there are not any inexpensive automobiles, significantly for younger folks, however actually for everyone, and simply the mismatch between affordability of autos and what’s accessible simply didn’t make sense.”
Slate’s truck gained’t hit the market till late 2026, however Relan and Clements have already got a bit 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 damage to be standing alongside some severe monetary and industrial firepower. Not solely did Bezos spend money on that preliminary funding spherical, however Slate additionally courted large cash from Los Angeles Dodgers proprietor Mark Walter in addition to VC agency Normal Catalyst. (“The companions they have been in a position to deliver alongside for the journey earlier than and after us have 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 advised 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 so far.
This mix – the Slate workforce, the key backers, and the chance on the entry degree of the automotive market – left Relan and Clements believing their funding can generate a very good return, even within the notoriously low-margin auto enterprise.
“We now have to have some deep conviction that that is one thing that might drive very actual returns within the fund,” Clements mentioned, earlier than including with amusing: “You already know, we’re not only a purely philanthropic group.”
