Published · 4d agoInvest3 min read
Also raises $150M past a $1B valuation, and the e-bike is the least of it
The Prysm-led Series D is earmarked for an autonomous platform for vehicles smaller than a car. The $3,500 bike is the first housing for the motors, batteries and compute.
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What happened
- Also raised a $150 million Series D led by Prysm Capital, with Eclipse Capital and Greenoaks also participating; Fortune said it learned of the round exclusively and that it was raised on Wednesday.
- The round pushed the two-year-old Palo Alto based startup's valuation past $1 billion.
- The new capital is earmarked specifically to accelerate Also's autonomous vehicle platform, with the company developing multiple autonomous hardware projects simultaneously for moving both goods and passengers.
- What Also makes is a small-vehicle technology platform alongside in-house motors, batteries, compute and software, designed to be dropped into anything smaller than a car that moves people or goods, such as pedal-assist delivery quads and eventually fully autonomous vehicles.
- Also's most visible product so far is a $3,500 e-bike.
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Why it matters
Also has raised a $150 million Series D led by Prysm Capital, with Eclipse Capital and Greenoaks participating, in a round Fortune said it learned about exclusively [1]. The money pushed the two-year-old Palo Alto company past a $1 billion valuation [2], and it is earmarked specifically for an autonomous vehicle platform rather than for shipping more bicycles [3].
The distinction matters because the visible product invites the wrong comparison set. What Also builds is a small-vehicle technology platform with motors, batteries, compute and software developed in house [4], intended to drop into anything smaller than a car that moves people or goods, including pedal-assist delivery quads and eventually fully autonomous vehicles [4]. The most visible product so far is a $3,500 e-bike [5]. The autonomy work is being run as multiple hardware projects at once, for goods and passengers, on the same EV architecture that underpins the TM-B consumer bike and the TM-Q commercial delivery quad [3][6].
The capital history is the tell. Also spun out of Rivian in early 2025 after running as a stealth project inside the carmaker, with founder RJ Scaringe as co-founder and chairman of both companies [7]. It took $105 million at spinout, then a $200 million Series C earlier this year led by Greenoaks with Prysm, plus a strategic investment from DoorDash [8]. That is at least $455 million of disclosed equity across three rounds [9], against a valuation described as just past $1 billion [2] - roughly 45 cents of announced primary capital for every dollar of stated company value [10]. This is a company being funded as a hardware and autonomy program, with the accompanying burn, not as a consumer brand.
The demand case is contested in the source material itself. Rad Power Bikes went bankrupt, Juiced Bikes collapsed, and Porsche walked away from the category [11]. Micromobility critic David Zipper reads that wave as evidence the category is saturated rather than underserved [12]. CEO Chris Yu, a former Specialized product chief with an aerospace background [13], argues the failures signal how hard it is to build a good customer experience, not weak demand, and points to unreliable batteries and clunky anti-theft locks as what keeps riders out [14]. Fortune puts the global micromobility market at around $50 billion, projected to more than double by the early 2030s [15], which implies something north of $100 billion [16].
The commercial side is where the platform thesis is testable now. Also has an existing Amazon partnership and a multi-year commercial agreement with DoorDash, pointing to robots built on the same motors and compute as the consumer bike [17]. Yu's framing is that repurposing a 7,000 pound van, truck or SUV to carry one passenger across town or deliver a hamburger does not make economic sense in dense metros [18], and his stated goal is that small-form-factor autonomy is unremarkable within five years, alongside self-driving cars [19]. Prysm's Jay Park, who led the round, drew the line back to his fund's Rivian investment in vertically integrated electric trucks, vans and SUVs [20].
Watch three things. Whether the DoorDash and Amazon agreements convert into deployed TM-Q volume, since those are the only near-term revenue anchors named. Whether the Rivian data relationship gets formalised: Rivian remains a major non-controlling shareholder and its on-road fleet generates the driving data Also will eventually need to train autonomy, which the source describes as a future dependency, not a live pipeline [21]. And the raise cadence, which has run at three rounds since early 2025 [8][9] and tells you how much runway an autonomy program at this scale actually consumes.
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Also raised a $150 million Series D led by Prysm Capital, with Eclipse Capital and Greenoaks also participating; Fortune said it learned of the round exclusively and that it was raised on Wednesday.
- [2]
The round pushed the two-year-old Palo Alto based startup's valuation past $1 billion.
- [3]
The new capital is earmarked specifically to accelerate Also's autonomous vehicle platform, with the company developing multiple autonomous hardware projects simultaneously for moving both goods and passengers.
ReportedView cited source - [4]
What Also makes is a small-vehicle technology platform alongside in-house motors, batteries, compute and software, designed to be dropped into anything smaller than a car that moves people or goods, such as pedal-assist delivery quads and eventually fully autonomous vehicles.
ReportedView cited source - [6]
The autonomous projects are all built on the EV architecture already underpinning Also's consumer bike, the TM-B, and its commercial electric delivery quad, the TM-Q.
ReportedView cited source
Sources & coverage · 2 publishers
The reporting this story was synthesized from, earliest first. Every link goes to the original.
- fortune.comLily Mae Lazarus4d agoAlso’s $3,500 e-bike is a $1 billion Trojan horse for autonomous transportation
- techfundingnews.comSofia Chesnokova3d agoPrysm Capital leads Also’s $150M Series D to push Rivian’s e-bike spinout into autonomy
Additional citations
- Fortune
- David Zipper, via Fortune
- Chris Yu, Also CEO



