GoKawiilTrucks VC reports 81 new autonomous vehicle startup pitches in 2026, up two-thirds
Venture firm Trucks VC says it has received pitches from 81 new AV startups so far in 2026, a two-thirds increase over last year and more than during the 2016-2017 dealmaking boom. Partner Puneeth Meruva told TechCrunch that some startups are now deploying within months while raising less than $1 million, aided by open-source foundation models like Nvidia's Alpamayo and Qwen's vision-language-action models.