Startups

Ibex Investors’ newest fund is betting on a mobility revolution

Comment

Autonomous vehicles city image
Image Credits: Getty Images

When Ibex Investors founder and CEO Justin Borus looks at the transportation industry — and the technological changes that are coming — he sees one of the biggest opportunities in a lifetime. And with a fresh $113 million fund focused on early-stage mobility companies, his firm is tapping into it.

“There will be more change in the next five to 10 years than in the past 100 years, Borus said, referring to the shift to autonomous vehicles and other changes in the transportation industry. “I would equate it (our fund) to an internet fund in 1996 or 1997.”

Ibex Investors, which is based in Denver with offices in New York and Tel Aviv, was founded in 2003 with a “multi-stage” and “multi-strategy” investment strategy. What this translates to is a firm that invests in private and public companies from the seed stage all the way through to IPO.

Their structure is unlike the traditional venture capital firm. Technically, Ibex is a registered investment adviser, although it is not an investment banker. Ibex does have dedicated VC funds, including a $100 million early-stage fund focused on Israel-based startups across all sectors, an Israel-focused hedge fund and a mobility-focused hedge fund that trades mostly in equities. Ibex also makes select one-off investments in later-stage mobility startups such as Revel. In all, the firm has about $1.2 billion in assets under management.

This latest fund has a dedicated focus on early-stage mobility startups, but it’s not restricted to Israel or any other geography. That opens Ibex to a whole new swath of mobility startups.

Jeff Peters, who recently joined Ibex after a stint at Autotech Ventures, said the fund is looking for startups in sharing and connectivity, electrification and autonomy.

That’s a lot of ground to cover. Ibex has kicked off this fund with two investments. One is into Aifleet, an Austin-based startup that has developed software to eliminate wait times for trucking; the other is an investment into Visionary.ai, an Israeli digital imaging processor company. Borus told TechCrunch that he believes trucking will be among the first sectors to be disrupted by autonomous vehicle technology.

Marc El Khoury, the co-founder and CEO of Aifleet, said he was drawn to Ibex, in part, because of the company’s limited partners.

“They’ve introduced us to former heads in the automotive industry, he said, noting that one was a previous president of a major truck manufacturer. “We’re a technology company, but we also have trucking operations within our company and those kind of connections are incredibly valuable to us.”

More TechCrunch

Google is finally making its Gemini Nano AI model available to Pixel 8 and 8a users after teasing it in March.

Google’s June Pixel feature drop brings Gemini Nano AI model to Pixel 8 and 8a users

At WWDC 2024, Apple introduced new options for developers to promote their apps and earn more from them in the App Store.

Apple adds win-back subscription offers and improved search suggestions to the App Store

iOS 18 will be available in the fall as a free software update.

Here are all the devices compatible with iOS 18

The acquisition comes as BeReal was struggling to grow its user base and was looking for a buyer.

BeReal is being acquired by mobile apps and games company Voodoo for €500M

Unlike Light’s older phones, the Light III sports a larger OLED display and an NFC chip to make way for future payment tools, as well as a camera.

Light introduces its latest minimalist phone, now with an OLED screen but still no addictive apps

Since April, a hacker with a history of selling stolen data has claimed a data breach of billions of records — impacting at least 300 million people — from a…

The mystery of an alleged data broker’s data breach

Diversity Spotlight is a feature on Crunchbase that lets companies add tags to their profiles to label themselves.

Crunchbase expands its diversity-tracking feature to Europe

Thanks to Apple’s newfound — and heavy — investment in generative AI tech, the company had loads to showcase on the AI front, from an upgraded Siri to AI-generated emoji.

The top AI features Apple announced at WWDC 2024

A Finnish startup called Flow Computing is making one of the wildest claims ever heard in silicon engineering: by adding its proprietary companion chip, any CPU can instantly double its…

Flow claims it can 100x any CPU’s power with its companion chip and some elbow grease

Five years ago, Day One Ventures had $11 million under management, and Bucher and her team have grown that to just over $450 million.

The VC queen of portfolio PR, Masha Bucher, has raised her largest fund yet: $150M

Particle announced it has partnered with news organization Reuters to collaborate on new business models and experiments in monetization.

AI news reader Particle adds publishing partners and $10.9M in new funding

The TechCrunch team runs down all of the biggest news from the Apple WWDC 2024 keynote in an easy-to-skim digest.

Here’s everything Apple announced at the WWDC 2024 keynote, including Apple Intelligence, Siri makeover

Mistral AI has closed its much-rumored Series B funding round, raising €600 million (around $640 million) in a mix of equity and debt.

Paris-based AI startup Mistral AI raises $640 million

Cognigy is helping create AI that can handle the highly repetitive, rote processes center workers face daily.

Cognigy lands cash to grow its contact center automation business

ChatGPT, OpenAI’s text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm. What started as a tool to hyper-charge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved…

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot

Featured Article

Raspberry Pi is now a public company

Raspberry Pi priced its IPO on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday morning at £2.80 per share, valuing it at £542 million, or $690 million at today’s exchange rate.

5 hours ago
Raspberry Pi is now a public company

Hello and welcome back to TechCrunch Space. What a week! In the same seven-day period, we watched Boeing’s Starliner launch astronauts to space for the first time, and then we…

TechCrunch Space: A week that will go down in history

Elon Musk’s posts seem to misunderstand the relationship Apple announced with OpenAI at WWDC 2024.

Elon Musk threatens to ban Apple devices from his companies over Apple’s ChatGPT integrations

“We’re looking forward to doing integrations with other models, including Google Gemini, for instance, in the future,” Federighi said during WWDC 2024.

Apple confirms plans to work with Google’s Gemini ‘in the future’

When Urvashi Barooah applied to MBA programs in 2015, she focused her applications around her dream of becoming a venture capitalist. She got rejected from every school, and was told…

How Urvashi Barooah broke into venture after everyone told her she couldn’t

Slack CEO Denise Dresser is speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024.

Slack CEO Denise Dresser is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt this October

Apple kicked off its weeklong Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2024) event today with the customary keynote at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. The presentation focused on the company’s software offerings…

Watch the Apple Intelligence reveal, and the rest of WWDC 2024 right here

Apple’s SDKs (software development kits) have been updated with a variety of new APIs and frameworks.

Apple brings its GenAI ‘Apple Intelligence’ to developers, will let Siri control apps

Older iPhones or iPhone 15 users won’t be able to use these features.

Apple Intelligence features will be available on iPhone 15 Pro and devices with M1 or newer chips

Soon, Siri will be able to tap ChatGPT for “expertise” where it might be helpful, Apple says.

Apple brings ChatGPT to its apps, including Siri

Apple Intelligence will have an understanding of who you’re talking with in a messaging conversation.

Apple debuts AI-generated … Bitmoji

To use InSight, Apple TV+ subscribers can swipe down on their remote to bring up a display with actor names and character information in real time.

Apple TV+ introduces InSight, a new feature similar to Amazon’s X-Ray, at WWDC 2024

Siri is now more natural, more relevant and more personal — and it has new look.

Apple gives Siri an AI makeover

The company has been pushing the feature as integral to all of its various operating system offerings, including iOS, macOS and the latest, VisionOS.

Apple Intelligence is the company’s new generative AI offering

In addition to all the features you can find in the Passwords menu today, there’s a new column on the left that lets you more easily navigate your password collection.

Apple is launching its own password manager app