TechCrunch Mobility: An acquisition that may not be hostile

Welcome to TechCrunch Mobility. A central hub for news and insight on the future of transportation. Need another reason to get this free in your inbox? The email version of this newsletter includes polls, including this week’s one asking readers what they think is the best business model for self-driving technology. Have an opinion on this? Email your opinion to kirsten.karasec@techcrunch.com with the subject line “AV Vote.”

Now, let’s get back to the show. LIDAR company Luminar’s path has had yet another twist and turn. And yes, that includes intrigue within the boardroom.

Let’s catch up first. You may remember that Luminar’s billionaire founder and CEO, Austin Russell, was more or less forced out of the company by the company’s board following an ethics investigation. But Russell didn’t spend the night quietly.

He came to our attention again a few weeks ago when he founded a new company called Russell AI Labs. And now (cue the deeply foreboding “dum dum duuuummm” sound): he’s pitched in to buy Luminar.

Senior reporter Sean O’Kane reported the story. You can read that article here. He then learned some more details than were disclosed in the SEC filing.

While this may seem like a potentially adversarial move, it is, after all, made clear in the filing from Russell, and Luminar has not commented on the proposal. However, sources say members of Luminar’s board approached the founders with the idea last month. (The word we were told was that they “encouraged” it.)

The implication here is that some on Luminar’s nine-member board really want him back, despite the fact that just a few months ago three of the audit committee’s board members conducted an ethics investigation into him, leading to his resignation.

The proposed acquisition described in the filing is vague, but Russell AI Labs could acquire another automotive technology company and merge with Luminar. Since this morning, we’ve heard that Russell has already been trained on several options as part of his diligence with the Russell AI Lab as a sort of incubator.

Great deal!

Two notable deals took place this week in the electric aviation space.

First, Beta Technologies took advantage of relaxed SEC rules during the U.S. government shutdown to price its initial public offering. The shares are priced between $27 and $33, and the company is expected to raise up to $825 million. If the company attracts investors at the higher end of that range, it would debut at a valuation of about $7.2 billion.

Earlier this month, the SEC issued guidance allowing companies with stalled IPOs to automatically make statements about certain areas, such as stock prices, effective after 20 days without review by SEC staff. Several other companies, including Navan, are proceeding with IPO plans based on this rule.

And then there’s Lilium, who was involved in a completely different kind of deal. The electric airplane startup may have ceased operations a year ago, but its technology lives on at Archer Aviation.

Archer won a competitive bidding process that also included Ambitious Air Mobility Group and Joby Aviation to purchase all 300 of Lilium’s patents. The €18 million ($21 million) price tag is an impressive figure compared to the more than $1 billion the defunct startup raised during its lifetime.

The question is, what does Archer plan to do with these patents? The company is not clear, but there are some hints, which you can read about in my story.

Other sales that caught our attention this week…

Airbound, an Indian drone startup founded in 2020, has raised $8.65 million in seed funding led by Physical Intelligence co-founder Lachy Groom. Humba Ventures and Airbound’s existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners were joined by senior leaders from Tesla, SpaceX, and Anduril.

London-based warehouse robot startup Dexory has raised $165 million in equity and debt. The $100 million Series C round was led by Eurazeo with participation from backers LTS Growth, Endeavor Catalyst, DTCP, Aomico, Lakestar, Elaia, Latitude Ventures, and Wave-X. The company also secured $65 million in debt financing from Bootstrap Europe.

FleetWorks, a logistics startup developing an “always-on” AI dispatcher, has raised $17 million in equity and debt, including a $15 million Series A round led by Bill Trenchard of First Round Capital. Y Combinator, Saga Ventures, and LFX Venture Partners also participated in FleetWorks Series A.

Pony.ai and WeRide have received key approvals from China’s securities regulators, paving the way for the self-driving car technology companies to seek a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Chinese companies are already listed on the US Nasdaq exchange.

Starship Technologies, an autonomous curbside delivery startup, has raised $50 million in a Series C round led by Plural. Karma.vc, Latitude, Coefficient Capital, SmartCap and Skaala also participated.

Paris-based smart city software company Upciti has raised $20 million in Series A funding led by Notion Capital. Other investors included Point Nine and Chalfen Ventures.

Indian grocery delivery company Zept has raised $450 million in funding ahead of its listing, Bloomberg reported.

Notable reads and other trivia

The National Transportation Safety Board is reviewing the Ocean Gate disaster, which killed five people during a voyage to view the wreckage of the Titanic. The NTSB released a report stating that the Titan submarines did not meet manufacturing safety standards.

Stellantis and Chinese self-driving car company Pony.ai are collaborating in a non-binding agreement to build robotaxis for use in Europe. The plan is to integrate Pony’s self-driving software into Stellantis’ medium-duty electric van platform.

While Stellantis continues to advance research into autonomous driving technology, it has withdrawn from electrification. The company announced it will invest $13 billion over the next four years to strengthen manufacturing in the United States. (This plan, by the way, has not been well received by Canadian unions.) Five new vehicles will be developed and produced by 2029 as part of investments in plants in Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana. Only one of these cars will be electric, a marked departure from Stellantis’ strategy a few years ago.

Uber is offering a new kind of gig work: digital tasks like uploading photos to help train AI models.

Waymo is also expanding into London. The company has announced that it will offer a commercial robotaxi service in London in 2026, marking the Alphabet company’s second international expansion after Tokyo.

As always, there was more news for Waymo. The company has signed a strategic multi-year agreement with DoorDash to use self-driving vehicles to deliver goods to customers in the Phoenix area. Waymo has been experimenting with delivery for a while. Is this a hint of what’s to come? I think so.

One more thing…

When it comes to Waymo and delivery, it got me thinking about what the best business model is. It’s been a minute since we started the survey, so please join us by signing up for our newsletter. I will share the results next week.