The Infinite Machine has transformed lots of heads when it unveiled its cyberpunk-style metallic electric scooter in 2023. Now, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capital firms is widely backing the startup’s vision of filling the world’s cities with the futuristic vehicles from Infinite Machine.

The New York-based startup has closed a $9 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz’s American Dynamism team as it gears up for production and first shipments next year of the “edition launch” of $10,000 for its P1 scooter. Venture capital firms Adjacent and Necessary Ventures, as well as the founders of women’s clothing company Reformation, software platform Replit and AI startup HuggingFace also participated in the round.

“As others move away (from hard tech), they lean into it,” Joseph Cohen, co-founder of Infinite Machine with his brother Eddie, told TechCrunch in a recent interview about securing a16z as an investor. “They want to do hard things and they recognize a kindred spirit in what we do.”

This is an interesting choice for this a16z unit, better known for its investments in defense technologies like Anduril or Skydio. However, the crux of the American dynamism thesis is to support technology that improves the lives of Americans in everything from defense to manufacturing.

“The cities of the future will look very different, and companies like Infinite Machine are pushing the boundaries of building futuristic urban transportation with their first P1 product,” said David Ulevitch, general partner at a16z American Dynamism, in a statement to TechCrunch . . “I’m excited to support the Cohen brothers as they bring form, function and durability to the next generation of mobility.”

Cohen enters the world of mobility after spending a decade running his previous startup Universe, a no-code website service. Infinite Machine is perhaps a bold move in a market that has struggled recently. Scooter company Birdelectric motorcycle start Cakeand the darling electric bike VanMoof have all been subject to restructuring and bankruptcy processes since the start of the pandemic. Others have gone completely bankrupt.

Cohen said he wasn’t fazed and thought now was a “much better time” to try to sell electric two-wheelers to U.S. customers.

“A lot of these companies have wasted a lot of money and so many investors are wary of this category because of these early failures,” he said. “But from our perspective, wow, this is amazing, like we’re getting all these learnings for free, and we’re hiring the best people, and we’re building and using all of their infrastructure that’s already there.”

That said, Cohen acknowledged that Infinite Machine is “not a consensus bet,” meaning it’s not the kind of company venture capital firms were knocking on doors to fund again. Many companies have tried to sell the scooter format to American customers, and almost none have been successful. Revel, another New York startup completely abandoned its scooter business in New York in favor of operating a more traditional fleet of Tesla electric vehicles. Others, like Taiwanese company Gogoro, have avoided coming to the United States altogether. Even Piaggio, maker of the famous Vespa scooter, has failed to make an impact with its electric offering in the United States.

Cohen pointed out that most of these companies operate very different businesses than what Infinite Machine is building, which is simply a direct sales model. Although the brothers have big goals, they want to start small, even hand-delivering vehicles to customers, instead of outsourcing delivery and logistics from the start.

Cohen also noted that Infinite Machine doesn’t try to do everything on its own. The company outsources much of its components, and even its manufacturing, to companies outside the United States (he declined to specify where the scooters will initially be built.)

The brothers have ideas for bringing some of these processes in-house in the future, including potentially manufacturing the vehicles in a 13,000-square-foot headquarters across the river from Manhattan.

For now, they’re just focusing on product design and marketing. In fact, Cohen believes this focus will help activate consumers who may be (or have previously been) indifferent to the idea of ​​using an electric scooter to get around. They don’t even use the word scooter in their marketing – instead calling it a “radical new personal electric vehicle” and, in some places, a “non-car.”

Cohen said he believes this will help Infinite Machine stand out from other companies that have tried and failed to make the form factor successful in the United States.

“We think what we can bring as an American company is an incredible sensitivity to products that doesn’t exist with products on the market, and that’s the angle we’re taking,” he said. he declared. “We go into that category and say, you know, these plastic things that look like printers, we can do better. We can create something that looks like your favorite car – but not a car, but something that spans the city.

In that sense, he said, “we’re much more like a Rivian or a Tesla than a Revel.” »

With these comparisons in mind, Infinite Machine’s plan of attack comes as no surprise. It starts with an incredibly expensive vehicle, but hopes to move into more affordable categories as it evolves.

“You know, we are brothers. This is what we want to do for the near future, and we plan to operate this business for the rest of our careers,” Eddie Cohen told TechCrunch. “All the decisions we make are in this direction. That’s why we’re so obsessed with product, because we know product is everything, and we need to build consumer trust for the long term.