San Francisco — AV Startups Pitching VC Firm Surge to 81 in 2026

Trucks VC, an early-stage venture firm that specializes in autonomous vehicle technology, has fielded pitches from 81 new AV startups so far in 2026, according to a blog post from the firm reported by TechCrunch Mobility. That figure is two-thirds higher than last year's count and surpasses the pace of the industry's first dealmaking surge in 2016 and 2017, the firm says.

Trucks VC partner Puneeth Meruva told TechCrunch Mobility the current moment outstrips the earlier boom by at least one measure: sheer volume of new entrants. "For a long time AV companies were trying to go from what was AV 1.0 to AV 2.0, which is kind of this holy grail end-to-end architecture for AVs," Meruva said, according to the report. "And I think the foundation models now provide a technical architecture that makes those end-to-end systems possible."

How many AV startups pitched Trucks VC this year?

The firm counted 81 pitches in 2026, up roughly two-thirds from the prior year, TechCrunch Mobility reported. Meruva told the outlet he expects the pace to keep climbing into next year rather than flatten out.

Why does 2026 look different from the 2016 AV boom?

The earlier wave centered on building bespoke perception and planning stacks for each vehicle type. Meruva argues the current cycle is different because general-purpose AI models can generalize across environments, a capability he says makes it possible to pursue "end-to-end" autonomy architectures that were previously out of reach, per the TechCrunch Mobility report.

What is lowering the barrier to entry for new AV companies?

Open-source vision-language-action models, including Nvidia's Alpamayo and models from Qwen, have given startups a technical foundation they no longer have to build from scratch, according to the report. Meruva told TechCrunch Mobility that Trucks VC is "consistently seeing startups deploy within a few months and with less than $1 million raised," though he declined to name specific portfolio companies that fit that pattern.

Are these new startups actually competing with Waymo?

Meruva said he expected most pitches to come from construction, warehouse, agriculture and mining applications, and many did. But he told TechCrunch Mobility he was surprised by how many pitches were pure-play robotaxi businesses positioning themselves against Waymo, the Alphabet-owned robotaxi operator. He does not believe that ambition is as far-fetched as it may sound. "In this world, smaller, more niche autonomy companies can compete — maybe they're not competing with Waymo on a global scale, but maybe they're competing in specific regions or specific types of routes," Meruva said, per the report.

What comes next for AV investment?

Meruva told TechCrunch Mobility he does not see the pitch volume slowing and anticipates even more AV startups will approach the firm in 2027. The report did not disclose how many of the 81 pitches Trucks VC ultimately funded, only that the firm has invested in some without naming which ones.

The figures and quotes in this report originate from TechCrunch Mobility's November 1, 2026 newsletter, written by Kirsten Korosec, which cited a blog post from Trucks VC and an interview with partner Puneeth Meruva.