What the business is
Autonomy runs a small EV subscription fleet; its spin-out ADS provides software and data for automakers' car subscription services.
The bet
That automakers that abandoned car subscriptions will pay for software and cohort data to run them, once pricing is predictable.
Starting capital
$2.5M raised so far; seeking $5-8M from an equity partner (per Painter)
How it started
Scott Painter, who founded TrueCar and later the SoftBank-funded car-leasing startup Fair, built Autonomy as an all-electric vehicle subscription company with a stated goal of 23,000 cars. The goal was never close: by 2024 the fleet was about 1,000 cars.
What happened
Autonomy was already struggling in 2023 when Elon Musk's price cuts destroyed the value of its mostly-Tesla fleet. Painter persuaded senior secured lenders to convert $32M of Autonomy debt into equity in ADS, sold a $6M beach house and other assets, and bought the bankrupt Shift Technologies' assets for under $1M.
How it ended up
ADS was spun out with an early product already earning revenue; Painter said it is negotiating with several automakers, three of which have run subscriptions before, and Deloitte partners.
What has to be true
Autonomy's fleet, mostly Teslas, lost value when Elon Musk cut prices aggressively, after it was already struggling.
Painter argues automakers' own subscriptions failed because their brand-new services lacked customer-behavior data, which forced high prices that scared buyers.
Data from the defunct companies, he says, shows how long people stay in cars by customer cohort, credit score and income, which could make subscription pricing more predictable.
What can be applied
When owning the assets fails, the data and software you collected can be a better business than the fleet: sell the picks and shovels to those still trying.
Aftermath
As of 11 August 2024, ADS had raised $2.5M, was looking for an equity partner to invest $5M to $8M for two years of runway, and said an early version of the service was already generating revenue. Painter described the process as the hardest build of his career; the claims about customers and data are his own.
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