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Why this LA-based VC firm was an early investor in Slate Auto

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The Slate Auto, which came out of the ghost, gathered earlier this year, through an amazingly customized electric truck – at amazingly affordable, $ 700 million so far.

But a long time before Ev Cover started, she quietly raised a round of series A by more than $ 100 million in 2023. While Jeff Bezos was involved in that tour, TECHRUNCH mentioned was not alone. An organizational file submitted to the Securities and Stock Exchange Committee shows up to 16 investors.

Slauson & Co. A company in Los Angeles, which was launched five years ago, is one of the few investors in the Slate’s Series A to speak publicly about their support for the company.

Tell the Slauson & Co. partner. Ajay Relan Techcrunch In an exclusive interview that his company is well aware of the startup of the EV, many EV that have occurred in recent years, as well as the opposite winds coming from the Trump administration for anything linked to green energy.

Regardless, Relan said that his partner Austin Clemens believes in the start of starting operating task of providing “more affordable, reliable and customized vehicles that are manufactured locally.”

Relan and Clements Slauson & Co. In 2020, friends since high school, both of whom originated from Slauson Avenue Street in the south of Central Los Angeles, which Relan classified it as “unknown necessarily by creating technology and the second investment.”

“But it is definitely a source of cultural capital that is repaired and distributed to more sophisticated areas and other parts of the world,” said Rilan. Slauson & Co. In bridging the gap between these two worlds by financing and empowering people who “historically their point of view has not been represented in the economy of innovation.”

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Relan said they have turned into Slate by Jeff Wilkie, former CEO of the Amazon Consumer Division, who co -founded R: Build Manufacturing, a incubator around it. It was presented by Wilki, which has been known by Relan since the establishment of Slauson & Co, to the secret project in 2023.

Relaan admits to invest in EV starting outside the “initial topics” of his company. But the duo was fascinated by the Slate mission to make a more friendly car.

He was sold in the project after Wilki presented Slauson & Co. To the Slate team.

The startup was still a few dozens of people in early 2023. But these people have contracts for experience in the auto industry. CEO Chris Parman spent more than 20 years in Chrysler, where he operated vehicle lines programs, driving Android car integration, and even cooperating with Waymo. The Chairman of the Board of Directors, Rodney and Senior Financial Director, Ryan Green, spent years in Harley Davidson and Rivian.

Parman in particular admired Slauson & Co partners ..

“She has a great vision. She has a great reputation within the company that has worked before,” said Clemens. “It is not a tug, not the noise. It is really about delivery.”

Clemens said that he and the Relan also depend on taste when it comes to investing in the early stage.

“Do we think this is something that resonates with what people are looking for at this stage?” He said. “The idea of ​​not having cars at reasonable prices, especially for young people, but in fact for everyone, and the lack of compatibility between the ability to bear the costs and what is available was not logical.”

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Slate’s TRCK will not hit the market until late 2026, but Relan and Clements already have a little verification that their view of taste was immediately with Slate: the company passed 100,000 reservation reservations in just two weeks.

Of course, it does not hurt me to be standing alongside some dangerous financial and industrial fiery power. Bezos not only invested in this initial financing round, but Slate also presented large funds from the owner of Los Angeles Dodgers Mark Walter as well as VC General Catalyst. (“The partners who managed to bring them on the journey before and after us, we were committing to the cake.”

These supporters helped fill the Slate treasures to about 700 million dollars, and the company told Techcrunch that it had already started in a series of financing from the chain C. Invested Slauson & Co. Also in the series B; The company refused to share the amount of its investment in a list so far.

Leaving this mixture-the Slate team, the main bacteria, the opportunity at the entry level of the automobile market-Relan and Clements believe that their investments can generate a good return, even in the field of low-sideline cars.

“We must have some deep conviction that this is something that can pay very real returns in the box,” said Clemens.

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