Episode 7: Riding the Shifting Currents of Mobility Innovation with Maniv's Michael Granoff

In this episode of Inside CVC, we sit down with Michael Granoff, founder of Maniv Mobility, to explore the dynamic forces reshaping the movement of people and goods. From electric trucks in California to two-wheelers in India, Maniv’s portfolio reflects the global push toward decarbonization, automation, and digitization. Michael shares candid insights on the rise of Chinese EV dominance, the challenges of aligning corporate venture capital with geopolitical uncertainty, and what the road ahead looks like for autonomous vehicles and AI in mobility. If you're navigating the intersection of venture capital, mobility innovation, and global industrial strategy, this conversation is a must-listen.

Transcript

Michael Granoff: 0:00

I'm Michael Granoff, I'm the founder of Maniv. Maniv is a early stage venture capital fund that focuses on startup companies that are in the business of decarbonizing, digitizing the movement of people and things. So things around mobility, you can think about automotive, you can think about automation, particularly in industrial applications and robotics and things like that. We do everything from deep technology, so we have a few silicon startups, all the way through operating companies like Revel in New York City with an all-electric ride share, and building out a DC fast charge network, all the way to OEMs, of which we have two, one building electric trucks in California called Harbinger Motors, and one doing electric two-wheelers in India called River.

Steve Schmith: 0:49

Those are, some of those brands, I just, I'm big fans of some of those brands and watching them, et cetera. So, why are you here? What are you hoping to get out of the summit?

Michael Granoff: 0:58

Well, we interface very regularly with our corporate partners, many of whom are here. And we find that our companies need to have relationships with the big corporates in order to make sure that their products and services are being on the right trajectory and ultimately for customers, relationships, and commercial partnerships. So it's very important for us to be able to remain good intermediaries between our companies and the corporate world. And so I thought being here amongst this terrific group would help that cause.

Steve Schmith: 1:38

Certainly a lot of innovation in the world that I think you and I know very well, the movement of people and goods and the various powertrains, the various technologies, the various automation around that. So certainly a lot of globally a lot of innovation going on. At the same time, geopolitical risk, this re-centralization of supply chains in some regard, even down to the level of vital materials and where those things are in the ground and being able to build those more locally. As you watch this very dynamic world we live in and balance that with innovation and venture capital, etc., what are those things that are sort of rising to the top that you're watching most?

Michael Granoff: 2:18

Well, I think you really hit the nail on the head in terms of what I would characterize as the elephant in the room, which is China's complete dominance of the supply chain and now production and export of vehicles, primarily electric vehicles. And it's been a strategy that they developed early on in the century and have really executed to perfection. I think it's something that Americans are less cognizant of, not because there isn't a lot of press attention to it, which there is, but it's very different when you don't see the vehicles on the road. And where I live in Israel, the first Chinese electric car entered the market in the beginning of 2022. So that's just three years ago. And yet already the saturation is completely unbelievable to the point where these days about one out of every two new cars sold in Israel is a Chinese EV. It's not just one. BYD is the leader and Geely, but there are more than a dozen brands that are in the market in Israel. And in terms of consumer offering, it's very, very hard to resist for ordinary consumers. And we're a small country, a small market, but we're seeing the same thing play out across Latin America. There's a fight as to what will happen in Europe and the degree to which that market will be open for them. The U.S. will not be open for them for the foreseeable future, but I do think that the implications of this real change of the guard in terms of international leadership in automotive production has just vast implications across the board.

Steve Schmith: 4:07

It's so interesting when you talk about China's plan, their strategy that they've had since 2000, turn of the century. It's not like they've been hiding it. No, that's exactly right. The five-year plan has been transparent, and to me, in some degrees, that creates a bit of a fandom within the society. It gets behind it, gets support, and so I

Michael Granoff: 4:30

love your point of view. 100%, and to that point, anybody who visits the website, tinyurl.com slash China EVs, will find that I posted there, more than a decade ago, an article from the New York Times, April 1st, 2009, and it actually lays out exactly what you said, that this was not done in the dark, They were very transparent about it. I think nobody believed A that they'd be able to pull it off or B that it would end up being as successful as it has and have the implications that it had. I remember in America when the Japanese cars began to come in the 70s and nobody really took them all that seriously. This is another level. This is an order of magnitude at least greater in impact in terms of global automotive.

Steve Schmith: 5:30

When you think about global automotive, and this is just curious, maybe be a little bit removed on. It's just and interesting conversation. How much does capitalism play into this and the need of corporate multinationals, at least U.S.-based ones, to feed their shareholder versus, I think, in comparison, in contrast to something, the products that are coming out of China, which are much more sort of consumer affordable?

Michael Granoff: 5:55

You know, this is where the mismatch is, and this is where I think, you know, a lot of people who were very supportive of China's ascension to the WTO now look back and see that as having been very misguided because we're really not playing by the same rules. The West is operating in a free market system, and China is obviously a very directed and planned economy. But unlike, for example, the Soviet Union, they have brought a level of sophistication to that planning that has augured to their benefit tremendously. And so it's very difficult, I think, for a lot of reasons for companies that have to rely on the private market for capital that have lots of uncertainty about what their regulatory environment that they're operating in is going to be from one year to the next. It's very difficult for them to then compete against this behemoth that has been created by the backstopping of hundreds of billions of dollars by the Chinese Communist Party.

Steve Schmith: 7:11

How does all of this dynamic uncertainty, how does that change the view of venture capital, corporate venture capital? How does it change the game?

Michael Granoff: 7:22

Well, it complicates it enormously because we've invested in a lot of companies that are selling into the automotive supply chain. And that's tough under the best of circumstances before this factor enters into the equation. And a lot of the types of things that our portfolio companies make are not things that we would necessarily want to bring to the Chinese market, even if that was an option. So it definitely, I think, forces a creativity to look at applications that go beyond automotive. But it's certainly not a stable environment to be investing in that sense, as far as automotive in particular is concerned.

Steve Schmith: 8:13

Let's close with an outlook, end of 2025. Look a little bit further, 2030. What are you watching? What do you think is going to happen relative to economics? Are we going to continue to see growth? How does that maybe influence changes in CVC?

Michael Granoff: 8:33

Look, there is always innovation, and corporates always need to engage with innovation in order to be able to continue to grow and to thrive. What do I see in the next several years? There's a lot of... A lot of things that are clear now that might not have been clear a few years ago. First of all, in terms of the general trend towards electrification, which these days people are very skeptical about, I think it's still inevitable. And the pace may be uneven and nonlinear, but the direction, I think, is clear. Another thing I'd say is that Obviously, AI is what everyone in the world is talking about, but as it impacts automotive and mobility in particular, autonomous vehicles are now finally entering what is known as the plateau of productivity on the Gardner hype cycle curve after a very abrupt spike in hype and a crash in the depths of despair. And a crash that was fatal to many of the players in that industry. But, you know, we're now in a world in which Waymo delivers hundreds of thousands of paid rides every week, and in which Wave in the UK just got a billion dollars in funding, in which Mobileye just announced a deal with Lyft, and even in Croatia, this company called P3 out of the Rimac Group that is building a purpose-made car, and that's all without mentioning the elephant in the room on this, which of course is Tesla. And so I do think some of the things that a lot of people talked about six or eight years ago around what would be the broader implications of a world in which robotic taxis were a reality, I do think now we'll begin to see some of those things. So I'm not saying that it's going to have a huge impact on automotive sales, although it may in some small way, but it is going to have implications that go well beyond the automotive industry. And I think the broader theme there, which is the intersection of AI and the physical world, is something definitely keep an eye on with humanoids and other innovations that marry those two worlds.

Steve Schmith: 11:15

Michael, thank you for a few minutes of your time. I appreciate it.