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I’ve joked here and on the Equity and Autonocast podcasts that the autonomous driving industry resembles 2016 in many ways—at least in terms of the hype surrounding this sector.
But a recent conversation I had with Puneeth Meruva, a partner at Trucks VC, made me reconsider this comparison. There are signs that the hype in 2026 could be even greater—at least by certain metrics—than the boom years of 2016 and 2017.
Trucks VC, focused on early-stage investments, has already engaged with 81 new autonomous driving startups this year—two-thirds more than last year, surpassing the volume seen during the boom a decade ago. In a new blog post, the venture firm stated that we are now in a second, even larger wave of autonomous driving, driven by technological breakthroughs. Yes, I’m talking about AI.
Meruva told me: “For a long time, autonomous driving companies have been striving to move from what’s called AV 1.0 to AV 2.0—a kind of end-to-end architecture for autonomous driving. I believe that today’s foundation models provide a technical architecture that makes these end-to-end systems possible.”
These foundational models excel at generalizing across different environments and scenarios, potentially making autonomous driving systems cheaper and faster to deploy. With the emergence of powerful open-source models like NVIDIA’s Alpamayo and Qwen’s general-purpose vision-language-action model, startups now find it easier to get started.
The barrier to entry into this field is lower than ever. Meruva says that startups frequently deploy within months after raising less than $1 million. (Although Meruva declines to name them, the firm has indeed invested in some of these companies.)
Of the 81 startups that submitted proposals to Trucks VC, I initially assumed most would apply autonomous driving technology to construction, warehousing, agriculture, and mining. Indeed, these areas were represented. But what surprised me was the growing number of companies focusing purely on robotaxi services, with many positioning themselves as direct competitors to Waymo.
This may sound crazy, even a bit "galactic thinking," but Meruva believes there is still room for small players.
He said, “In this world, smaller, more specialized autonomous driving companies can compete—they may not be competing with Waymo globally, but they might be competing in specific regions or on certain types of routes.”
Meruva also does not believe this pace will slow down. He expects more autonomous driving startups to submit proposals to the agency next year.
Trade!
Re:Build, a manufacturing accelerator based in Massachusetts, has raised $2.1 billion to "expand Re:Build’s capability to manufacture hard tech products and incubate new industrial startups." The round was led by General Catalyst and JPMorgan Chase’s Strategic Investment Group. Other investors were not disclosed.
The company, co-founded by Jeff Wilke, former CEO of Amazon's consumer business, positions itself as "America's answer to Shenzhen."
Other trades...
Bedrock Robotics raised $600 million in a Series C round led by CapitalG and Emergence Capital, bringing its post-money valuation to $4.1 billion. New investors including the US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), Bessemer Venture Partners, and Temasek participated in this round, alongside existing investors 8VC, Georgian, Valor Equity Partners, Xora, Eclipse, Perry Creek Capital, and Nvidia.
DoorDash has agreed to acquire Instacart for $17 billion. Meanwhile, in its third-quarter earnings report, DoorDash mentioned that, to date, it has received only a few hundred orders from AI agents.
PreScalar, a San Francisco-based startup developing factory software and testing infrastructure, has raised $7 million in seed funding led by Dynamo Ventures and BMW i Ventures, with participation from Blue Wire Capital, Uplift Ventures, and Antler. The company was founded last year by three entrepreneurs who previously worked at Cruise, Google, Rivian, and Waymo.
Elroy Air, a startup developing autonomous heavy-lift cargo drones for defense, rapid response, and commercial logistics, has hired Jeremy Hux as Chief Financial Officer in preparation for an IPO.
Ford has announced the launch of two new electric vehicle chargers, enabling its upcoming F-150 Lightning pickup to function as a battery to power homes or the grid.
General Motors is now embracing hybrids. Times have truly changed! The American automaker is also seeking to move past the data-selling controversy from a few years ago. GM has agreed to a $220 million settlement with 36 states, following earlier settlements with California and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, to resolve allegations that it illegally sold private driving behavior and location data to data brokers.
Kodiak AI will deliver 75 autonomous trucks to freight company DTL Transport starting in 2028. This is the company’s first binding commercial agreement involving driverless heavy trucks capable of operating on public roads.
Rivian released its third-quarter earnings report, highlighting several noteworthy developments. First, the strong performance of the new R2 prompted the company to raise its 2026 delivery guidance by several thousand units. Rivian had previously forecasted delivering 65,000 to 70,000 vehicles this year and has now raised the lower end of that range to 67,000. However, another potentially more profitable development is underway: Rivian’s $5.8 billion joint venture with Volkswagen Group is expanding to include an AI assistant. It remains unclear whether this expansion will lead Volkswagen to invest additional funds into Rivian.
Tesla is turning to Turo to promote the adoption of its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) feature.
Waymo and Toyota have finalized a manufacturing partnership, moving beyond the "we're just talking" phase. Toyota will produce the bZ4X model, designed for autonomous driving, at its Japanese factories and integrate Waymo’s autonomous driving system. These vehicles will be used for robotaxi services in Japan, the UK, and other international markets. Notably, both companies have hinted that this could eventually lead to a licensing agreement, allowing Waymo’s autonomous technology to be adopted in personally owned vehicles.
One more thing...
Final reminder: The Founder Summit, taking place on November 4 in Boston, is a one-day event designed for founders, investors, and builders in and around Boston—I’ll be there! This event is tailored for startup founders, aspiring founders, and investors, featuring insightful talks from venture capitalists and serial entrepreneurs, along with ample opportunities for networking.
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