Los Angeles-based electric truck startup Harbinger has raised 160 million dollars in a Series C funding round co-led by FedEx. This investment will help the company scale up production of its commercial vehicle program.
As part of the investment, FedEx has placed an order for 53 of Harbinger’s electric truck chassis. The startup says these chassis will be ready by the end of this year.
Harbinger was founded in 2022 by former employees of the now-defunct EV startup Canoo and battery company QuantumScape. The company set out with a specific goal to build medium-duty, commercial truck chassis and nothing else. This focus on simplicity helped the company raise a 100 million dollar Series B round in January and begin production of its truck chassis this year, just three years after its inception.
FedEx is the most recognizable customer for Harbinger to date. However, the startup has also spent the last few years working with RV-builder THOR Industries. THOR co-led this Series C funding round with FedEx, as did the Technology Impact Fund at Capricorn, which was an early Tesla investor.
Previous investors in Harbinger also participated in this round. These include Leitmotif, a new venture capital firm backed by Volkswagen, as well as Tiger Global, Maniv Mobility, and Schematic Ventures.
FedEx has spent the last decade looking to add electric trucks to its nationwide delivery fleet. In 2018, the logistics giant took a gamble on another Los Angeles-based startup called Chanje, placing an order for 1,000 of its imported Chinese delivery vans. That deal ultimately ended in a lawsuit, and Chanje collapsed soon after.
The market for commercial electric trucks and vans has matured since then, though the field still does not have many players. General Motors recently gave up on its BrightDrop delivery van program after a few lackluster years. Sales of Ford’s E-Transit van have also plummeted. Rivian has supplied around 25,000 electric vans to Amazon but has yet to lock down another major commercial customer.
Harbinger is focused on trucks that are larger than the BrightDrop, Ford, or Rivian vans, and it has found early success in that part of the market. The company has sold over 200 chassis this year alone and recently announced an expansion into the Canadian market.
Dipender Saluja, the managing partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund, commented on the investment. He stated that FedEx’s participation signals a demand for innovation in the medium-duty truck sector and for an electric model that helps advance business and sustainability goals at the same time. He added that over the last two decades, medium-duty truck fleets have generally deployed small volumes of demonstration electric trucks, but the industry is now ready to move to mass adoption, with Harbinger leading that scale up.