Infinite Machine Raises $9M Led by a16z to Convince Americans to Buy Scooters

Infinite Machine turned many heads when it unveiled its cyberpunk metal electric scooter in 2023. Now, one of Silicon Valley’s largest venture capital firms is backing a startup’s vision to widely populate the world’s cities with futuristic vehicles, Infinite Machine.

The New York-based startup has closed a $9 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism team, preparing for production and initial deliveries next year of a “launch version” of its $10,000 P1 scooter. The round also included participation from venture capital firms Adjacent and Necessary Ventures, as well as the founders of women’s clothing company Reformation, software platform Replit, and AI startup HuggingFace.

“While others are kind of moving away (from hard tech), they’re leaning toward it,” Joseph Cohen, co-founder of Infinite Machine with his brother Eddie, told TechCrunch in a recent interview about bringing on a16z as an investor. “They want to do hard things and see a kindred spirit in what we do.”

This is an interesting choice for the a16z division, which is better known for its investments in defense technologies such as Anduril or Skydio. But the core of the American dynamism thesis is to support technologies that improve the lives of Americans in everything from defense to manufacturing.

“The cities of the future will look very different, and companies like Infinite Machine are pushing the boundaries in creating futuristic urban transportation with their first product P1,” said David Ulevich, general partner at a16z American Dynamism, in a statement to TechCrunch. . “I’m excited to support the Coen Brothers as they bring form, function and sustainability to the next generation of mobility.”

Cohen is entering the world of mobility after ten years of work on his previous startup Universe, a no-code website service. Infinite Machine is perhaps a bold move in a market that has been struggling as of late. Scooter company Bird, electric motorcycle startup Cake and e-bike darling VanMoof have all gone through bankruptcy restructuring processes since the start of the pandemic. Others went out of business entirely.

Cohen said he’s not fazed by that and that he believes now is a “much better” time to try to sell electric two-wheelers to American customers.

“A lot of these companies have wasted a lot of money, and so a lot of investors are wary of this category because of the early failures,” he said. “But we look at it like, wow, this is amazing, like we get to benefit from all this knowledge for free, and we can hire their best people, and we can build and use all of their infrastructure that already exists. ”

However, Cohen admitted that Infinite Machine is “not a consensus bet,” meaning it’s not a business that venture capitalists are knocking on the door to get funded again. Many companies have tried to sell the scooter form factor to US buyers, but almost none have succeeded. Fellow New York startup Revel has completely abandoned its New York scooter business in favor of running a more traditional fleet of Tesla electric vehicles. Others, such as Taiwanese company Gogoro, avoid coming to the US altogether. Even Piaggio, maker of the famous Vespa scooter, has failed to make headway with its electric offering in the US.

Cohen noted that most of these companies operate very different businesses from the one Infinite Machine is building, which is simply a direct sales model. Although the brothers have big goals, they want to start small, even delivering cars to customers by hand, rather than outsourcing shipping and logistics from the start.

Cohen also noted that Infinite Machine isn’t trying to do everything on its own. The company outsources a large number of components and even their production to companies outside the United States (he declined to say where the scooters will initially be manufactured).

The brothers have ideas for moving some of those processes in the future, including potentially making cars at a 13,000-square-foot headquarters across the river from Manhattan.

For now, they are content to focus on product design and marketing. In fact, Cohen believes the focus will help galvanize consumers who may be (or already were) indifferent to the idea of ​​using an electric scooter to get around. They don’t even use the word “scooter” in their marketing – instead calling it a “radical new personal electric vehicle” and in some places a “non-car”.

Cohen said he believes this will help Infinite Machine distance itself from other companies that have tried and failed to make the form factor successful in the US.

“We think that as an American company we can bring an amazing sensitivity to the product that is not found in products on the market, and that’s the view we take,” he said. “We’re coming into this category and saying, you know, these plastic things that look like printers, we can do this better. We can make something that looks like your favorite car, but not a car, but something that extends to the city.”

In that sense, he said, “We’re much more like Rivian or Tesla than we are Revel.”

Given these comparisons, Infinite Machine’s plan of attack comes as no surprise. The company is starting with an incredibly expensive car, but as it scales, it hopes to move into more affordable categories.

“You know, we are brothers. This is what we want to do for the foreseeable future, and we plan to run this company for the rest of our careers,” Eddie Cohen told TechCrunch. “Every decision we make is in service of this. That’s why we’re so obsessed with this product: we know the product is everything and we need to build consumer trust in the long term.”