Evotrex has been around for just two years, but the startup is already planning to build and sell its first hybrid RV travel trailers next year, targeting around 1,000 units annually.
To get there, Evotrex has closed a $30 million Series A funding round, bringing its total raised to $46 million. Much of that came from a consortium of Chinese and Hong Kong-based investment firms, like GSR United Capital, Forebright Concerto Capital, TTGG Ventures, and Pegasus Capital, among others. Anker, the consumer electronics company, is among its seed investors.
The L.A.-based startup will need that capital finish building and testing its RV, which it revealed at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show after emerging from stealth mode last year.
It will also need it to hold its ground in a crowded field of startups. Legacy manufacturers have been slow to get going. Thor’s first electric vehicle is going to rental fleets rather than dealerships, and Winnebago’s eRV2 has been in field testing since 2023 without reaching consumers. That gap has drawn a wave of startups, and Evotrex is racing to fill it first.
Co-founder Alex Xiao told TechCrunch that he is excited about the competition, and is drawing on his experience as a product manager at Anker to help differentiate Evotrex.
“We are not afraid of competition, competition is a good thing. We educate the market together, we grow the market together,” he said. “I think in the long term the strongest companies will have many things — you must be very good at product definition, R&D, and supply chain. You also need to be very good at distribution [and] service. Many things together. It’s a very complicated business.”
Some RV startups like Lightship and Pebble are pushing all-electric travel trailers. Evotrex is one of the few that is building a hybrid system. Specifically, it’s an RV powered by a battery pack that can be recharged with an onboard gas engine — an approach commonly referred to as an “extended range electric vehicle,” or EREV.
The goal, Xiao said, is to create an RV that can really let people live off the grid for extended periods of time …