A little bird

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane obtained (and verified) an internal memo sent by Redwood Materials founder and CEO JB Straubel that announced layoffs and a restructuring. (Thanks to the little bird who shared it.) Straubel is a former CTO of Tesla.

The company laid off around 135 employees, or roughly 10% of its workforce, as it restructures to better accommodate its growing energy storage business. O’Kane later learned several executives have also recently left. Chief operating officer Chris Lister is retiring, and at least three other VPs have left in recent months, with the company telling TechCrunch there has been a focus on reducing layers of management.

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Last week, I shared that a new autonomous hauler startup (think a cabless autonomous big rig) backed by Eclipse was about to break cover and announce a seed round, thanks to a little bird. Welp, it happened just days later. 

The San Francisco-based startup, called Humble Robotics, raised $24 million in a seed round. Eclipse led the round, which also included backing by Energy Impact Partners and RedBlue Capital, a small early-stage VC firm that is surprisingly active. 

As I had been told, Humble really is chock-full of Silicon Valley elite, including founder Eyal Cohen, who previously had stints at Apple special projects, Uber ATG, Pronto, and Waabi. He also founded Spark AI, which was acquired by John Deere in 2023. 

Other execs include Drew Gray, who has a similarly AV-heavy résumé, including early days at Cruise, before jumping over to self-driving trucks startup Otto, which was acquired by Uber. After leaving Uber, he became CTO at Voyage, which was then acquired by Cruise. 

A full-circle moment, cemented by this fun fact: Humble Robotics is in the same building Cruise was in right after the startup moved out of founder Kyle Vogt’s garage. I know, we keep circling back to 2016.  

Except it’s not 2016, and Cohen and Gray talked to me about how much has changed since then, why this is the time to launch an AV startup, and where the industry is headed. Stay tuned for that story next week.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected] or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O'Kane at [email protected]. 

Deals!

Lyft stuck to the North American market for much of its history, while Uber took a global, expand-at-all-costs strategy. Lyft has been trying to catch up since last year when it bought German multi-mobility app Freenow from BMW and Mercedes-Benz Mobility for about $197 million in cash. 

Now it’s acquiring ride-hailing app Gett’s U.K. business. Lyft says the deal will give it the majority of registered black cab drivers across Greater London on the Lyft platform. The company didn’t disclose the terms, but Calcalist reported it was $55 million. 

The company is also building out other means of transport in the region, including its recently renewed partnership with Serco to provide the bikes and stations for Europe’s bike-share system Santander Cycles. Lyft is also planning to start testing autonomous rides in London with Baidu later this year. 

Other deals that got my attention …

A&K Robotics, a Vancouver, Canada-based maker of autonomous vehicles for airports, raised an $8 million CAD Series A round led by BDC's Industrial Innovation Venture Fund and Vantage Futures.

Decade Energy, which provides power infrastructure at logistics depots, raised €22 million in funding led by Eiffel Investment Group and SET Ventures, along with existing investors.

Reliable Robotics, a Silicon Valley startup developing autonomous systems for aircraft, raised $160 million in a round led by Nimble Partners, existing backers Eclipse, Lightspeed, Coatue, and Pathbreaker Ventures, and new investors Island Green Capital, Socium Ventures, AE Ventures (a strategic partner of the Boeing Company), RTX Ventures, Presidio Ventures (Sumitomo Corporation), UP.Partners, KAS Venture Partners, What If Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, and Mana Ventures. History lesson: Co-founder and CEO Robert Rose had a brief stint at Tesla where he was senior director of Autopilot and helped ship that first iteration in 2015.

PlusAI and blank-check company Churchill Capital Corp IX terminated its SPAC merger deal due to market conditions.

Porsche is selling its stake in the Bugatti Rimac joint venture, which it formed in 2021, as well as electric-vehicle maker Rimac Group. Porsche, which holds a 20.6% stake in Rimac and a 45% stake in the joint venture, is selling to HOF Capital. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.