Canoo hit with two supplier lawsuits as last remaining co-founder leaves
EV startup Canoo has been hit with two new lawsuits from suppliers linked to the drivetrains that power its electric vehicles, just weeks after the company kicked off a major reorganization that included the departure of its chief technology officer.
Canoo has also parted ways with senior director of advanced vehicle engineering Christoph Kuttner, who was the last remaining co-founder from the team of nine that created the startup in late 2017, TechCrunch has learned.
Kuttner was one of nine co-founders who split off from Faraday Future at the end of 2017 to start up Evelozcity, the original incarnation of Canoo. Those co-founders have steadily slipped away from the company before, during, and after its transition from a private startup to a publicly-traded company in late 2020 when it merged with a special purpose acquisition company.
The supplier lawsuits, both of which were filed in September with Oakland County Circuit Court in Michigan, come at a time when Canoo is moving away from its original California headquarters and focusing increasingly on its operations in Texas and Oklahoma, and while courting potential customers in the U.K. and Middle East. It’s doing all of this on a tight budget. The company reported just a little more than $19 million in total cash, of which $4.5 million was unrestricted, as of June 30, 2024.
