Grounded Secures $5M Seed Round, Opens New 50,000-Square-Foot Manufacturing Facility to Scale Commercial Fleet Production

DETROIT--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 18, 2026--

Grounded, the Detroit-based advanced manufacturing and mobility company known for its modular electric vehicles, today announced it has closed a $5 million seed round and is moving production into a 50,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Detroit. The expansion increases Grounded’s production capacity by 1,900% and will support the launch of a new vehicle-agnostic box platform that extends the company’s software-defined, modular vehicle architecture into a significantly larger commercial fleet market of both electric and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles.

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"This new facility is a turning point for Grounded," said Sam Shapiro, Founder and CEO of Grounded. "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.”

$5M Seed Round Fuels Next-Generation Manufacturing

The seed round will fund three areas of expansion: standing up the box platform manufacturing line, including new tooling, equipment and R&D; building out the larger Detroit production facility; and growing the manufacturing, engineering, and sales team responsible for scaling the company’s vehicle platform.

The new box line builds on the software-defined, modular architecture Grounded developed for its existing van-based vehicles. Its adaptive customization technology allows a common vehicle platform to be configured for a wide range of applications, giving fleet operators purpose-built vehicles without requiring Grounded to engineer an entirely new vehicle for every use case.

“The economy is moving onto wheels,” said Grounded Chief Product Officer Nadia Meyer. “We’re seeing notable growth across food and beverage franchises, field operations, public safety, and mobile healthcare. Our box platform embraces those use cases and speeds manufacturing to meet that demand and serve the sizable addressable market.”

Growing Fleet Adoption Across Industries

Grounded is already putting its electric fleet vehicles to work across a diverse set of industries. Customers include Colgate, Nokia, Coffee Fellows, Wayne State University Medical, PetEvolution and Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, with vehicles supporting applications ranging from mobile medical and dental services to food service and other field operations.

The expansion marks the next phase in Grounded’s evolution from an electric RV startup into a broader advanced manufacturing and fleet technology company. Grounded will continue building fully electric RVs for direct-to-consumer customers while increasing its focus on commercial and government fleets seeking to electrify operations without sacrificing the flexibility of purpose-built vehicles.

“Grounded is a company on the move, both literally and figuratively,” said Kevin Johnson, president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation. “This team emerged from Newlab with a bold idea and turned it into a business that now requires 50,000 square feet and 15 new jobs to support its growth. Our Retention Program made the connections that kept this exciting company in the City, adding another strong chapter to Detroit’s story as a leader in mobility.”

Building the Team for the Next Stage of Growth

Grounded is also expanding its commercial leadership as it scales. The company has hired Drew Snow, formerly of Adrian Steel, as Director of International Sales to help grow the company’s fleet business and bring its modular electric vehicle platform to customers across new markets.

Grounded will begin production at the new Detroit facility in August 2026, with capacity ramping through 2027 to support existing commitments, the new box platform and a growing pipeline of enterprise and municipal fleet customers

About Grounded

Founded by former SpaceX engineers, Grounded is an advanced manufacturing and mobility company based in Detroit, Michigan, building smart, modular, electric vehicles for adventure and commercial use. Grounded specializes in modular manufacturing solutions that allow vehicles to be customized for a wide range of applications, paired with a connected software platform for remote monitoring and fleet management. Learn more at groundedevs.com.

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"We built this company to bring smart, modular electric vehicles to the businesses and institutions that keep our cities running," said Grounded CEO Sam Shapiro. "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.”

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A Turkish delegation had visited an air base in northern Syria the day before it was hit by Israeli airstrikes, Syrian officials said.

The Israeli strikes hit the Abu Duhur base early Tuesday, hours after the delegation had left, causing damage but no casualties. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel had attacked the base because Syria was “on the verge of breaching” an agreed-upon “status quo in security matters” by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there.

Two Syrian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly said the Turkish delegation had visited the air base in the northwestern province of Idlib on Monday to review rehabilitation work underway at the facility.

It was the first confirmation of a Turkish presence at the Abu Duhur base.

Turkish and Syrian officials have not publicly commented on Turkey's role there but have condemned the attack, as did Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey who also serves as special envoy to Syria, and a number of Arab countries.

Turkish officials on Wednesday did not comment on the reported presence of a Turkish military delegation. But Turkey’s communications directorate accused Netanyahu of making “untenable allegations ... intended to legitimize Israel’s unlawful airstrikes targeting Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” It alleged that Netanyahu aimed “to pursue expansionist and destabilizing policies in the region ahead of the elections in Israel.”

Turkey “will resolutely continue to cooperate with the Syrian Government on a legitimate basis for the establishment of peace, stability, and prosperity in Syria, and will never allow the destabilization of Syria,” it said.

The Abu Duhur air base lies at a strategic location near the borders between Idlib, Aleppo and Hama provinces. During the time of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, who was ousted by a rebel offensive in December 2024, MiG-23 and MiG-21 fighter jets and L-39 aircraft operated out of the base.

Turkey has been supporting Syria’s effort to rebuild its armed forces by training Syrian personnel at Turkish military schools and bases, and by supplying equipment and logistical support. Officials have not disclosed the types of equipment involved. The two countries signed an agreement last year that formalized their military cooperation.

Earlier this year, Syrian troops also took part in military exercises held in Turkey.

Turkish officials have repeatedly stated that Ankara does not consider Syria’s security separate from its own.

Israel, meanwhile, has remained suspicious of the new authorities in Damascus, led by former Islamist insurgents. Syria’s interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has said repeatedly that he does not want a conflict with Israel.

Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes around Syria after Assad’s fall, mainly destroying assets of the Syrian army to keep them out of the hands of his successors. The Israeli military also seized control of a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria, which it continues to occupy.

Turkey, a NATO member that also recently signed a defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, gave no indication that it would respond militarily to the Israeli strikes in Syria, but the incident added further strain to already tense Turkish-Israeli relations.

Turkey and Israel once were close allies, but the relationship has been marked by deep frictions under Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s more than two-decade rule, despite brief periods of reconciliation. Erdogan is an outspoken critic of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians, while Israel has been angered by Erdogan’s support for the Hamas militant group.

The fall of Assad’s government further strained their relations as the two rivals sought to curb each other’s influence in the neighboring country, with some analysts fearing that they could be headed toward a proxy war.

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Fraser reported from Ankara.

FILE - Decommissioned Syrian air force planes are seen at the Abu Duhur military air base east of Idlib, following the takeover of the area by Syrian opposition fighters on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Albam, File)