Telo Raises $20M for Compact Electric City Trucks
▼ Summary
– Large electric trucks are struggling in the market, with models like the Cybertruck and Ram 1500 EV facing cancellations or declining sales.
– California startup Telo is betting on a small electric truck, the MT1, and has secured $20 million in Series A funding from investors including Marc Tarpenning and Marc Benioff.
– Telo has a hyper-focus on producing compact trucks for city dwellers, aiming for unit profitability by starting with modest production targets of around 5,000 vehicles per year.
– The MT1 is designed to be highly useful in a small footprint, featuring a 5-foot bed that seats five people and a targeted range of 350 miles on a single charge.
– The company plans to stay lean with a small team and use contract manufacturing, differentiating itself from other EV startups that have failed after raising hundreds of millions.
The electric truck market faces significant challenges, with major players struggling to gain traction. Despite this, a new contender believes the solution lies not in size, but in smart design. California startup Telo has secured $20 million in Series A funding to advance its compact MT1 electric pickup, betting that urban drivers will embrace a smaller, more efficient vehicle tailored for city life.
While giants like Ford and Stellantis grapple with their full-sized electric offerings, Telo is carving a distinct path. The company’s strategy revolves around a hyper-focus on metropolitan areas, where parking is scarce and large trucks are impractical. CEO Jason Marks emphasizes that the core mission is solving urban mobility problems, a pain point he knows well from circling San Francisco blocks searching for a space.
This recent funding round was co-led by prominent figures Yves Béhar and Tesla co-founder Marc Tarpenning, who are also Telo co-founders. Additional support came from investors including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and several early-stage venture funds. The capital injection will be directed toward finalizing the production-ready version of the MT1, completing crucial homologation for U.S. safety standards, and conducting crash tests.
Telo’s approach is notably frugal compared to other automotive startups that have burned through hundreds of millions. The company plans to maintain a lean operation with about 25 employees, relying heavily on contractors and a network of EV industry experts. This philosophy extends to manufacturing; Telo intends to produce approximately 5,000 trucks annually through a contract manufacturer, a far cry from the mass-production ambitions of its failed predecessors.
A key selling point for the MT1 is its clever use of space. Despite having a footprint similar to a Mini Cooper, the truck is designed to seat five adults and features a five-foot bed, offering more cargo room than some larger competitors like the Rivian R1T. Perhaps more impressive is the claimed driving range. Marks states the MT1 will achieve around 350 miles on a single charge, a figure competitive with the best EVs on the market. This range is made possible by a large 106kWh battery pack ingeniously packaged into the small frame, albeit with some trade-offs in acceleration performance.
With a starting price near $41,000 and a pre-order list of 12,000, Telo is targeting a specific niche. The company’s ethos is achieving unit profitability quickly, avoiding the trap of needing massive capital before production. The first MT1 trucks are expected to reach customers by the end of 2026. In a challenging EV climate, Telo is betting that a small, focused team and a clever product can succeed where larger, well-funded efforts have faltered.
(Source: TechCrunch)
