Jiten Behr, a partner at Eclipse Ventures and former chief growth officer at Rivian, believes the United States is on the cusp of a major re-industrialization. We are living in an era where factories are run by AI-powered robots rather than cheap overseas labor.
Behl, who helped grow Rivian from a boardroom idea to a publicly traded EV maker in 2015, is now investing in the next wave of industrial and mobility startups, including two Rivian spinouts: Also and Mind Robotics. This is part of Eclipse’s big bet that the physical world is finally ready for the kind of disruptive software we saw a decade ago.
Today on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec speaks with Behl about why Rivian keeps spinning out companies, what “physical world” founders need but not software founders, and why automation is needed if the U.S. wants to compete without China’s supply chain.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
Why Bale is looking for founders who are both “hyper-optimistic” and grounded in reality, and why that combination is surprisingly rare even in Silicon Valley. Vertical integration worked for Rivian, but doesn’t it work for most startups today? Bale predicts that over the next five years, autonomy will become “a reality, something we can touch and feel.”
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