What mobility investors actually back
Mobility is a wide label. It covers anything that changes how people and goods get from one place to another. That means electric vehicles and charging, self-driving software, ride-hailing and car sharing, e-bikes and scooters, fleet tools and newer bets like delivery drones and air taxis.
It helps to know which corner you're in before you pitch. Oliver Wyman, which has tracked mobility funding since 2017, sorts the space into four groups. There are mobility services like ride-hailing. There's sustainable mobility, which means EVs, batteries and charging. There's connected and self-driving tech. And there's sales and after-sales, which covers things like online car marketplaces and financing. An investor who loves charging networks may have no interest in a ride-hailing app, so say which group you're in right away.
The mobility tag on Angel Match is a focused one. The list of transportation investors is several times bigger because it takes in the whole sector, freight and transit included. If you're building in a niche, check the tighter lists too. There are separate pages for autonomous vehicle investors and fleet management investors, and many people show up on more than one list.
Where mobility investors are based
About four in ten mobility investors on Angel Match are in the United States. California alone accounts for nearly half of the US group, and San Francisco is the top city on the whole list. New York City comes second.
The surprise is what comes next. Germany, not the United Kingdom, holds the number two spot among countries. Munich and Berlin are almost level with each other, and both sit close behind London and Paris. It makes sense when you think about it. Germany's car industry is one of the biggest in the world, and Munich is BMW's hometown. If your product sells to automakers, investors in Germany deserve a spot near the top of your list.
Europe as a whole is a big part of the picture. Germany, the UK, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands together make up about a quarter of the list. India is the other one to watch. It's nearly tied with the UK for third place, and Bengaluru has more mobility investors than Los Angeles.
Here's a quirk in the US data. Michigan, the home of Detroit's carmakers, doesn't make the top ten states and regions. Texas and Illinois do. In America, the money behind mobility startups sits in tech and finance hubs, not next to the factories. So if you're building in Detroit, plan on pitching investors in San Francisco and New York over video. Don't wait for local money to find you.
Who's on the list: funds, angels and carmakers' venture arms
About two-thirds of the investors here carry a venture capital tag, and more than half are tagged as angels. Many people hold both tags, because plenty of fund partners also write personal checks. That matters for check size. Angels usually invest $25,000 to $500,000. Venture capitalists write bigger checks, from $2 million to $100 million or more.
The stage mix leans early. Nearly half of the list invests at the early venture stage, and more than a third do seed rounds. Pre-seed is thinner, at about one in ten. Late-stage investors are rare here, so if you're raising a growth round you'll need to look past this tag.
The number that stands out is corporate venture capital. About one in ten mobility investors carries that tag. Across the whole Angel Match database, it's closer to one in a hundred. Carmakers, suppliers and energy companies run venture arms because backing startups is how they keep up with new tech.
Corporate venture capital investors can open doors that a regular fund can't, like a pilot with the parent company. But ask two questions before you take the money. Will this deal stop you from selling to the parent's rivals? And does the investor get any special rights if someone offers to buy your company later? A check from one carmaker can make other carmakers nervous about working with you, so get the terms clear up front.
What the mobility funding market looks like now
There's a lot of money in mobility, but it's getting harder to reach if you're early. Oliver Wyman's Mobility Investment Radar counted $54 billion in global mobility funding in 2024, the second-highest year it has recorded. But the number of funding rounds fell 30% from 2023. More money went into fewer, bigger deals for companies that were already scaling.
The next year was tougher still for young companies. PitchBook's mobility tech research found that early-stage funding in the sector fell 73% in 2025. Carmakers wrote down EV programs, US policy shifted and investors got careful.
Not everything cooled. PitchBook says AI-powered self-driving tech and advanced air mobility kept pulling in capital while EV funding slowed. So where you sit in mobility matters a lot. An autonomy software startup and an EV hardware startup are walking into very different rooms right now.
What does that mean for you? Expect a longer raise than founders had a few years ago. Figure out how many months of runway you have before you send the first email, and start early enough that you're not pitching with three months of cash left.
What mobility investors look for
Mobility investors have been burned before. The shared-scooter boom showed them what happens when a company grows fast while losing money on every ride. So they'll go straight to your numbers per vehicle, per trip or per charger.
Usage comes first. A scooter, van or charger only makes money when someone's using it. Know how many hours or trips each one gets per day, and how many it needs to break even. If you can show one city or one depot where the math already works, lead with that.
Have a plan for the expensive stuff. Mobility startups often need vehicles, hardware or charging sites, and equity is a pricey way to pay for those. Investors like to see that you'll use loans or leasing for the assets and save their money for the team and the tech. If you're pure software, say so early. It's a selling point here.
Show a path from pilot to contract. Carmakers, fleet operators and cities love pilots. They're slow to sign real deals. A free trial with a big logo won't impress a mobility investor much. A paid contract with a smaller customer will. If you do have pilots, tell investors what has to happen for each one to turn into revenue, and when.
Know your rules. Permits, safety approvals and insurance can decide whether you're allowed to operate at all. City rules for scooters and state rules for self-driving tests change often. Investors will ask which approvals you need, which ones you already have and what happens if a city changes its mind.
How to pitch mobility investors
Name your corner of mobility in the first line of your email. "EV charging software for apartment buildings" tells an investor right away whether you fit. "Mobility platform" doesn't.
Then match the investor to your customer and your stage. Selling to automakers? Look at Germany and at corporate venture arms. Building self-driving or fleet software? Start with San Francisco. Raising your first round? Stick to investors tagged seed or pre-seed. Sending a seed deck to a Series B investor wastes a contact you might want later.
Mobility is one of the few markets where a carmaker's venture arm, a Munich fund and a San Francisco angel could all fit the same round. The Angel Match investor database lets you filter this list by country, stage and investor type, so you can build a short list for your corner of mobility. Start with 20 to 30 names that match, and write each one a specific note.
Transportation investors
