RJ Scaringe has raised more than $12 billion across three startups, but investors are still looking for more money

Investors don’t seem to fully understand RJ Scaringe or his ideas.

In less than a decade, the serial entrepreneur, best known for his EV company Rivian, has raised more than $12.3 billion for three (and more) startups from venture capital firms as well as strategic and institutional investors. If the recent $400 million raise for his new business, Mind Robotics, is any indication, investors are still willing to flock in.

In recent years, big raises for newly created startups have become more common. But these billion-plus seed rounds have typically been reserved for hot defense tech startups or AI companies founded by former employees of OpenAI and Anthropic.

These super-sized seeds certainly weren’t going toward niche things like electric micromobility startups. Yet in 2025, Scaringe raised $105 million to do just that. It’s a startup called “Also” that was founded in the same year. Since then, it has raised more than $300 million and counts DoorDash among its backers.

Jiten Behl, a partner at Eclipse and former chief growth officer at Rivian, has been watching and learning from Scaringe for years. His company is currently one of Scaringe’s biggest backers, leading rounds for both Scaringe’s industrial AI and robotics startups Also and Mind Robotics, which he also founded last year.

Bale, who joined Rivian when the company had only a few employees, said storytelling and communication are among his superpowers.

“When RJ describes a particular issue, topic, opportunity, vision, he has a very unique ability to communicate it very effectively, which makes it very believable,” Bale said. “He’s not trying to underestimate the difficulties or overestimate the opportunities. That’s art.”

Scaringe isn’t the only serial entrepreneur to repeatedly raise large sums of money, but founders who can raise billions across multiple businesses are still rare. Scaringe, a self-proclaimed car enthusiast with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT, joins a small group of entrepreneurial executives including Tesla CEO and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anduril and Oculus founder Palmer Lackey, and Jack Dorsey, who founded Square (now called Block) and Twitter.

The difference, at least in the view of some investors TechCrunch spoke to, is that he can distinguish between selling an idea and selling himself. “He’s very comfortable and confident in his character. He’s not trying to be Elon,” Bale said, noting that many people have tried to compare him to Elon over the years.

“It’s not about him,” another insider familiar with Scaringe’s company told TechCrunch. “When you talk to him, he’s completely passionate about the outside product.”

Of course, he’s confident and has some ego, but “it’s not a burden,” the source said. The source also added that Scaringe has a unique ability to make you feel like the most special person in the room. Others had similar opinions.

Giving such undivided attention to investors, suppliers or manufacturer executives is a challenge on the scale Scaringe is attempting. He runs three companies and travels frequently between Rivian’s factories in Palo Alto, Irvine and Normal, Illinois, and a second factory opening soon in Georgia. And then there’s my family. Scaringe has three sons with his ex-wife.

Joe Fass, another partner at Eclipse, credits his generosity and collaborative nature with helping him attract investment and juggle these related but disparate businesses.

Fass also noted that Scaringe “has the rare combination of being a truly great engineer while also having tremendous intuition for product design.” He previously worked for T. Rowe Price, Rivian’s major backer. “Very few founders can operate at that level technologically while understanding what resonates emotionally with their customers (both consumers and commercial buyers). This combination is incredibly rare and is clearly part of what differentiates Rivian’s products, and now Ars and Mind’s products.”

Scaringe’s pace of fundraising over the past eight years has been particularly noteworthy, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down.

More than $11 billion was invested in Rivian, by far the most in VC and strategic capital, most of it between 2018 and its blockbuster IPO in 2021. That’s a surprising timeline, especially considering the company, originally called Mainstream Motors, has been around since 2009. For years, Rivian operated as a small, unknown company until its breakout moment at the Los Angeles Auto Show in late 2018, when a prototype was unveiled. The all-electric R1T truck and R1S SUV.

Money was quickly flowing from all directions. In early 2019 and just a few months after that revelation, Rivian raised $700 million in a funding round led by Amazon. US automaker Ford will invest $500 million and plan to collaborate on a defunct future EV program. Cox Automotive donated $350 million. Rivian had planned to close out the year with a $1.3 billion round (its fourth of 2019) led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, with additional participation from funds managed by Amazon, Ford and BlackRock.

In July 2020, Rivian raised $2.5 billion, followed by another $2.65 billion six months later. As whispers of an IPO grow, Rivian has completed another $2.5 billion private financing round led by Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, D1 Capital Partners, Ford Motor Co., and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. Third Point, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Dragoneer Investment Group and Courtet also participated.

Then came the IPO. Rivian raised nearly $12 billion in total proceeds after securing $78 per share. When it listed on the Nasdaq in November 2021, its market capitalization reached $100 billion, but it now stands at $18.2 billion, a significant decline that also reflects broader struggles in the EV sector.

The ability to raise that much capital despite such headwinds is extraordinary. But Scaringe didn’t stay at Rivian. In fact, the pace has accelerated. Together with Mind Robotics, they’ve raised more than $1.3 billion to date, and Mind Robotics has been especially fast-moving, raising $115 million in its first year, $500 million in March, and another $400 million this week alone.

Rivian also continues to attract high-profile backers through high-profile deals such as a $5.8 billion joint venture with Volkswagen Group and a robotaxi partnership worth up to $1.25 billion with Uber.

“Now, the big question is, how much can he do?” Bale said. “That’s a question [that] It is assumed that the limit has already been reached. The problem is, he doesn’t see it that way. His perspective is that there is great value to be created, great impact to be made, and I just have to do it. ”