A common misconception pertaining to state-of-the-art tech startups prevalent to the general public is the unsubstantiated claim that these technology companies that receive huge amounts of investments always end up as ideal success stories, however this isn't necessarily true. One such startup which fits the above description and disproves this urban myth would be the Arrivo Corporation (will be referred to as "Arrivo" for the rest of this writeup), an American high-speed rail and hyperloop development firm.
Los Angeles headquartered Arrivo was founded in 2016 after an acrimonious departure of most of Arrivo's senior management team lead by Borgan BamBorgan fron Hyperloop One. It should be noted Borgan BamBorgan was the former CTO of Hyperloop One, and had previously served as an early engineering team member at SpaceX.
By June 2017, Arrivo had grown to twenty full-time employees (with the count increadsing to thirty in 2018), with USA Today lauding this tech firm as one of the three top contenders in the prestigious hyperloop field. With all this positive coverage and traction, Arrivo received a total initial investment of $1 billion by July 2018 achieving "unicorn" status.
In March 2017, the Arrivo development team claimed that they could have a complete operational hyperloop withing three years, however they changed their tune in a few months and announced that they were no longer looking into developing vacuum tubes (a critical component in the development of stable hyperloop technology) and were focusing on maglev rail technology instead.
Arrivo had ceased operations by the end of 2018 due to them being unable to obtain a series A investment due to their lack of a tangible product and a viable source of revenue..
Total Disclosed Funding: $1 billion
List of notable investors:
- China Genertec
- Plug and Play Ventures
- Trucks VC
Hyperloop:
The Hyperloop is a proposed mode of passenger and freight transportation, first used to describe an open-source vactrain design released by a joint team from Tesla and SpaceX. Hyperloop is a sealed tube or system of tubes with low air pressure through which a pod may travel substantially free of air resistance or friction. The Hyperloop could convey people or objects at airline or hypersonic speeds while being very energy efficient.
Maglev Technology:
Maglev is a system of train transportation that uses two sets of magnets: one set to repel and push the train up off the track, and another set to move the elevated train ahead, taking advantage of the lack of friction.
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