Early-stage VC Trucks Reports Surge in Autonomous Vehicle Startup Pitches in 2026, Surpassing Previous Boom

Trucks VC, a US-based venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investing, recently published a blog post stating that it has received business plans from 81 new autonomous vehicle (AV) startups so far in 2026. This figure represents a two-thirds increase compared to last year and exceeds the volume seen during the industry's boom period a decade ago.

Puneeth Meruva, a partner at Trucks VC, described this as a "second, even bigger AV wave" fueled by technological breakthroughs. He argued that foundation models now provide a viable technical architecture for end-to-end autonomous systems, enabling cheaper and faster deployment. The availability of powerful open-source vision-language-action models, such as Nvidia's Alpamayo and Qwen, has significantly lowered the barrier to entry.

Meruva noted that many startups are deploying within months on less than $1 million in funding. Beyond traditional applications in construction, warehousing, and mining, an increasing number of startups are pitching pure-play robotaxi businesses, positioning themselves as direct competitors to Waymo. While these smaller players may not compete globally with Waymo, Meruva believes they can find niches in specific regions or route types.