(Bloomberg) —
Arc Boat Co. raised $70 million from investors to move beyond high-end electric boats and expand its operations toward electrifying more of the marine industry.
The Series B round was led by Eclipse, a firm focused on real-world startups, and included existing investors Andreessen Horowitz, Lowercarbon Capital and Abstract Ventures, as well as new backer Menlo Ventures, Arc said Wednesday in a statement.Play Video
Los Angeles-based Arc had been making and selling a limited number of $300,000 battery-electric boats called Arc One, but sold out. The battery pack in that model is about twice the size of that in a Tesla Inc. electric consumer car. Like a consumer EV, the boat is capable of over-the-air software updates. Now Arc wants to go from a maker of expensive, niche products to more “cost-effective” options. A new model is slated for 2024, though no specifics have been disclosed, and the company is taking fully refundable deposits.
“We are only two and a half years old,” Arc Chief Technology Officer Ryan Cook said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We have sold and delivered these to customers — that is incredible for a hardware company — and it speaks to the engineering team that we have.”
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The field of electric boat makers is relatively crowded. Sweden’s X Shore sells similar high-end boats in the US, and domestic rival Nautique Boat Company Inc., based in Florida, has its own models.
Additionally, Arc said it will open a new 150,000-square-foot factory in Torrance, California, at the end of the year. Arc raised a $30 million round in November 2021.
“There is a new industrial renaissance in this country,” Eclipse Managing Partner Lior Susan said on Bloomberg Television. “You now can build the most sophisticated boat in Los Angeles. That would not be something you could do before. I think we are seeing companies like Tesla, SpaceX, Arc and others building a new industrial regime in this country.”
(Updates with comments from executive on Bloomberg Television in the fourth paragraph.)
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