Detroit's Grounded raises $5M to customize electric and gas-powered vans

Detroit-based Grounded has had to be flexible since it was founded in 2022. The startup was initially built around customizing electric vans like Ford’s E-Transit and General Motors’ BrightDrop for the “van life” set, using a modular, “Lego-like” system, before shifting to customizing those vans for small businesses. But GM discontinued BrightDrop last year, Ford axed plans for a next-generation electric Transit van, and EVs generally became a harder sell in the U.S.

That hasn’t stopped Grounded. On Tuesday, the startup announced it has closed a $5 million seed round, with repeat investments from existing backers Also Capital and Chicago-based early-stage firm The 81 Collection, along with Animal Capital, the Michigan Outdoor Innovation Fund, and “various SpaceX alumni,” according to founder and CEO Sam Shapiro.

Grounded has also opened a new 50,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Detroit, where it will scale its core modular design business to be vehicle-agnostic, letting it customize fit to different fleet needs — electric or combustion-powered. Production at the facility starts this month, with capacity ramping up next year. “This new facility is a turning point for Grounded,” Shapiro said in a statement. “We built this company to bring smart, modular electric vehicles to the businesses and institutions that keep our cities running. With this expansion, we can finally build at the scale our fleet customers need and bring our platform to an entirely new class of commercial vehicles.”

Grounded has already signed customers in commercial (Colgate, Nokia), medical (Wayne State University Medical, the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Hawaii), and veterinary sectors. In a statement Tuesday, Grounded’s chief product officer, Nadia Meyer, said the company is seeing “notable growth” from food-and-beverage and public-safety customers, among others.

For Shapiro, GM’s cancellation of BrightDrop was a catalyzing moment. He wrote in a blog post late last year that Grounded would embrace gas-powered vehicles, building on more popular models like Ford’s combustion-powered Transit and Mercedes-Benz’s Sprinter vans, which also let Grounded seek customers not yet ready for EVs due to infrastructure challenges. Shapiro said at the time Grounded would exhaust its remaining BrightDrop inventory while pivoting to new models, including electric and hybrid options from fellow startup Harbinger. “Grounded is not an ‘EV company,’ nor is Grounded a vehicle company at all,” Shapiro wrote. “We build the smart, high-tech, modular workspace or living space on top of the chassis… The application layer on top of the vehicle is our product.”

Why it matters

Grounded’s shift from EV-only to vehicle-agnostic customization shows a startup adapting its business model around two automakers’ retreat from electric vans, rather than betting its survival on the EV transition alone.