RJ Scaringe has raised over $12 billion across three startups and investors still want more

Investors can’t seem to get enough of RJ Scaringe or his ideas.

In less than a decade, the serial entrepreneur best known for his electric vehicle company Rivian has raised more than $12.3 billion from venture capital firms, as well as strategic and institutional investors for his three startups, and counting. If the recent $400 million raise for his new venture Mind Robotics is any indication, investors are still happily rallying.

Large raises for newly started companies have become more common in recent years. But these hundred million-plus seed rounds were generally reserved for defense technology startups or AI companies founded by former OpenAI or Anthropic employees.

These huge seeds certainly weren’t flowing toward something niche like a micro-electric mobility startup. However, in 2025, Scaringe raised $105 million for exactly this purpose – a startup called “Also”, which he founded in the same year. The total has since surpassed $300 million, with DoorDash among its backers.

Jeten Biehl, a partner at Eclipse and former chief growth officer at Rivian, has spent years watching and learning from Scaringe. His company is now one of Scaringe’s biggest backers, leading rounds in both Also and Mind Robotics – Scaringe’s industrial AI and robotics startup which he also founded last year.

Storytelling and communication are one of his superpowers, according to Biehl, who joined Rivian when the company had few employees.

“When RJ explains a particular issue, topic, opportunity or vision, he has this very unique ability to communicate it very effectively, with great credibility,” Behl said. “He’s not trying to downplay the difficulty or overestimate the opportunities, and that’s art.”

Scaringe isn’t the only serial entrepreneur who has repeatedly attracted massive amounts of capital, but founders who can raise billions across multiple ventures remain rare. The car enthusiast, who earned a doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT, joins a small cadre of entrepreneurs that includes Tesla CEO and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anduril and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, and Jack Dorsey, who founded Square (now called Block) and Twitter.

The difference, at least from the perspective of some investors TechCrunch spoke to, is that he is able to separate the selling of the idea from the selling of himself. “He’s very comfortable and confident in who he is, and he’s not trying to be like Elon,” Behl said, noting that many have tried to make the comparison over the years.

“It’s not about him,” another source familiar with Scaringe’s companies told TechCrunch. “When you talk to him, he has a completely outward enthusiasm about the product.”

Of course, there’s confidence and even a little ego, the same source said, but “it doesn’t weigh on you.” The source also added that Scaringe also has a unique ability to make you feel like the most special person in the room — a sentiment echoed by others.

Giving that kind of undivided attention to an investor, supplier or manufacturer executive is a challenge on the scale that Scaringe is trying to do. He runs three companies, often traveling between Palo Alto and Irvine, California, the Rivian factory in Normal, Illinois, and soon a second factory in Georgia. Then there is the family; Scaringe has three children that he shares with his ex-wife.

Joe Vath, another partner at Eclipse, credits its openness and collaborative nature with helping him attract investment and align these interconnected and disparate companies.

He noted that Scaringe also “has the rare combination of being a really great engineer with an exceptional instinct for product design,” said Fateh, who previously worked at T.Rowe Price, a major backer of Rivian. “Very few founders can operate at this level technically while also understanding what resonates emotionally with customers – both consumers and business buyers. This combination is incredibly uncommon and was clearly part of what makes Rivian’s (and now also ALSO’s and Mind’s) products so special.”

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

More than $11 billion, the largest tranche of venture capital and strategic capital, has gone into Rivian — most of it between 2018 and its blockbuster IPO in 2021. That’s an astonishing timeline especially considering that the company, initially called Mainstream Motors, has been around since 2009. For years, Rivian operated as a small, little-known entity until its breakout moment in late 2018 at the Los Angeles Auto Show, when it unveiled prototypes of Its all-electric R1T truck and R1S SUV.

Soon the money was flowing in, from every direction. In early 2019, just two months after this revelation, Rivian raised a $700 million funding round led by Amazon. US automaker Ford will invest $500 million and make plans to collaborate on a future electric vehicle program that has since been cancelled. Cox Automotive contributed $350 million. Rivian will close out the year with a $1.3 billion round — its fourth in 2019 — led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, with additional participation from Amazon, Ford and funds managed by BlackRock.

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

Then came the IPO. Rivian raised nearly $12 billion in total proceeds after securing $78 per share. It had a market capitalization of $100 billion when it debuted on the Nasdaq in November 2021. Today, it has a market capitalization of $18.2 billion today, a significant decline that also reflects the broader struggles of the electric vehicle sector.

The ability to raise that much capital, despite those headwinds, is phenomenal. But Scaringe didn’t stop at Rivian. If anything, the pace has accelerated. Together, Mind Robotics has raised more than $1.3 billion to date, with Mind Robotics moving particularly quickly: $115 million in its first year, $500 million in March, and another $400 million just this week.

Rivian also continues to have 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.

“The big question now is, how much can he do?” Behl said. “That’s a question [that] It is already assumed that it has reached its limit. The thing is, he doesn’t look at it that way. “His view is that there is great value to be created, there is great impact to be created, and I should do it.”