Garden Grove-based Harbinger Motors Inc., a medium-sized EV cargo truck chassis maker, has raised $100 million to fuel the next stages of its growth of its privately held company.
Harbinger said on Tuesday, Jan. 14, that it will use the venture capital funding to buildup production capacity at its Knott Avenue plant to meet demand for a flurry of chassis orders received in recent months.
Harbinger said it also will use the funds to expand its sales and parts and service operations for the nationwide rollout of its EV chassis.
“These funds catalyze significant revenue generation,” said John Harris, the chief executive officer of Harbinger Motors, in a statement. “We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company, which moved its headquarters from Gardena in July, said it has raised $200 million in venture capital funding since its inception in 2021.
To date, Harbinger has received 4,690 vehicle orders, valued at roughly $500 million from buyers like bread delivery company Bimbo Bakeries USA, the Nebraska-based postal service operator Mail Management Services Inc., and recreational vehicle maker THOR Industries in Elkhart, Indiana.
Harris, who co-founded the EV truck-chassis maker in 2021, previously worked at Costa Mesa-based defense technology company Anduril Industries Inc. and EV startups Faraday Future of Gardena and Xos Trucks in northeast Los Angeles.
Co-founders include Phillip Weicker, who serves as Harbinger’s chief technology officer and who formerly had key roles with San Jose-based lithium battery developer QuantumScape and Torrance-based EV carmaker Canoo; and Will Eberts, chief operating officer who worked with Harris at Faraday Future and with Weicker at Canoo.
Harbinger, which makes chassis and axles for delivery vehicles that look like Fed-Ex and UPS trucks, employs 250 people in technical, design and engineering jobs at its plant. It could add another 100 people over the next year, Harris said in an interview last November.
The Series B funding round was co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, an investor in electrification companies, and Leitmotif, a venture capital firm anchored by European industrial interests. Both are based in Silicon Valley’s Palo Alto.