RJ Scaringe has raised over $12 billion across three startups and investors are still looking for 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 EV company Rivian, has raised more than $12.3 billion from major venture capital firms, as well as strategic and institutional investors for his three – and counting – startups. If the recent $400 million raise for his new venture Mind Robotics is any indication, investors are still piling on with excitement.

Over-promotion of new startups has become more common in recent years. But those 100 million seed rounds are usually reserved for weird defense tech startups or AI companies founded by former OpenAI or Anthropic employees.

Those lofty characters certainly weren’t flowing into something like the beginnings of electric micromobility. But in 2025, Scaringe raised $105 million for just that — a startup called And, which he founded that same year. The total has since surpassed $300 million, and DoorDash is among its sponsors.

Jiten Behl, a partner at Eclipse and former chief growth officer at Rivian, spent years watching and learning from Scaringe. His firm is now one of Scaringe’s biggest backers, leading the rounds of both Also and Mind Robotics – Scaringe’s industrial AI and robotics he founded last year.

Storytelling and communication are among his strengths, according to Behl, who joined Rivian when the company had just a handful of employees.

“When RJ describes an issue, a topic, an opportunity, an idea, he just has this unique ability to talk about it effectively, and it comes across as credible,” Behl said. “He’s not trying to downplay the difficulty or overlook the opportunity, and that’s art.”

Scaringe isn’t the only serial entrepreneur to attract huge amounts time and time again, but founders who can raise multi-billionaires remain rare. A self-proclaimed car enthusiast who earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT, Scaringe joins a small group of entrepreneurs that includes Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anduril and Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey, and Jack Dorsey, founder of Square (now Block) and Twitter.

The difference, at least in the opinion of some investors TechCrunch spoke to, is that you can separate selling the idea from selling yourself. “He’s comfortable and confident in his personality, and he’s not trying to be Elon,” Behl said, noting that many have tried to make the comparison over the years.

“It’s not about him,” one insider familiar with Scaring’s companies told TechCrunch. “When you talk to him, he’s passionate about a product that’s completely out there.”

Of course, there is self-confidence and even a little ego, the same source is considered, but “it does not survive.” The source also added that Scaringe 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’s work is a challenge on the scale that Scaringe is trying. He runs three companies, often commuting between Palo Alto, Irvine, Rivian’s factory in Normal, Illinois, and a second factory soon to open in Georgia. And then there’s family — Scaringe has three sons with his ex-wife.

Joe Fath, another partner at Eclipse, credits his open-mindedness and collaborative nature with helping him attract investment and bring together these connected, but disparate businesses.

He noted that Scaringe also has “the rare combination of being an outstanding engineer while having a unique sense of product design,” said Fath, who previously worked at Rivian giant T.Rowe Price. “There are very few innovators who can work at that level with technology while also understanding what resonates with customers — both consumers and commercial consumers. That combination is incredibly rare and is clearly part of what makes Rivian’s products, and now Also and Mind’s, so distinctive.”

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

Over $11 billion, and the largest portion of VC and strategic capital, flowed into Rivian – most of it between 2018 and its blockbuster IPO in 2021. That’s an impressive timeline especially considering the company, originally called Mainstream Motors, has been around since 2009. Show, when it unveiled prototypes of its all-electric truck R1T and R1S SUV.

Soon the money came out, and it’s coming from everywhere. In early 2019 and a few months after it was revealed, Rivian raised $700 million in funding led by Amazon. The US car company Ford will invest 500 million and make plans to cooperate in the future EV system based on that time. Cox Automotive contributed $350 million. Rivian will close 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 rumors of an IPO grew, Rivian closed another $2.5 billion private equity funding 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 cash after closing at $78 per share. Its market cap reached $100 billion when it debuted on the Nasdaq in November 2021. Today, it stands at $18.2 billion today, a significant decline that also reflects the broader struggles of the EV industry.

The ability to raise that much money, despite those headwinds, is unique. But Scaringe didn’t stop at Rivian. If anything, the pace has quickened. And Mind Robotics has raised more than 1.3 billion dollars so far, and Mind Robotics is moving very quickly: $ 115 million in its first year, $ 500 million in March, and another $ 400 million this week.

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

“Now, the big question is, how much can he do?” Bhele said. “That’s the question [that] he already thinks he’s reaching his limit. The thing is that he doesn’t look like that. His view is that there is great value to be created, great impact to be made, and I just have to do it. “