A website selling pieces of individual cars.
No retail investor marketplace. No fractional Cybercab tokens. No promise that one vehicle is passive income.
Austin is city one Physical + software platform
The physical and software operating system for autonomous fleets.
Lantern combines fleet ownership, local depots, operating teams, and software in one system designed to launch city after city.
Not a fractional car offering
Own the parentBuild city nodesReuse the system
Lantern in one sentence
Each city makes money locally. The parent company gets stronger globally.
THE SIMPLE VERSION
Lantern launches and owns local autonomous fleet companies, then reuses the same operating infrastructure in every new market.
Closer to a multi-site infrastructure operator than fractional real estate.Each city is an operating node. The parent owns the system that connects and scales them.
An owner-operator that can launch the same fleet system in many cities.
The cars produce local cash. Lantern OS and the reusable city launch system create the scalable company.
The full stack
What Lantern owns, runs, and turns into software.
The autonomy company drives the car and supplies demand. Lantern makes the physical fleet financeable, available, charged, clean, and productive.
Autonomy platform
Driving system + riders
The platform supplies autonomous driving, dispatch, payments, and rider demand.Lantern parent
The reusable operating system
Capital relationships, depot design, procurement, reporting, software, and the launch playbook live here.City operator
The local cash engine
Each city company runs vehicles, charging, cleaning, maintenance, staffing, and uptime.Shared onceLantern OS, brand, finance, vendors, reporting
Repeated locallyDepot, vehicles, charging, team, uptime
Lantern OS
The operating data becomes a product.
We build the first version to run Lantern fleets. Once Austin proves the workflows, the same software can support local operators and owners who need help managing their own autonomous taxis.
BASE MODEL INCLUDES $0 OF SOFTWARE REVENUESHARED COMMAND LAYERLantern OS
One operating record for every vehicle, depot, city, lender, and owner.
Built inside AustinThen offered outside Lantern
01
Fleet command
See which cars are earning, charging, waiting, down for service, or ready to return to the road.
02
Depot control
Schedule charging, cleaning, inspections, and maintenance around demand instead of losing productive hours.
03
Asset finance
Track cash by vehicle, loan coverage, repair cost, and replacement timing in language owners and lenders understand.
04
Owner portal
Give fleet owners one place to see utilization, downtime, distributions, service history, and operating documents.
PHASE 1Run Lantern fleets
The software replaces spreadsheets and creates clean operating evidence.
PHASE 2Manage partner-owned cars
Lantern earns an operating fee while owners provide some of the vehicle capital.
PHASE 3License the system
Qualified fleet operators pay a monthly software fee per active vehicle.
The compounding layer
The first fleet is the proof. The next city is the payoff.
Vehicle revenue itself is not exponential. The compounding comes from reusing what Austin teaches us and spreading shared company costs across a larger fleet network.
01
Operate the first fleet
Austin turns a spreadsheet into real utilization, maintenance, charging, and cash-flow data.
02
Prove the risk
A real operating record can improve how lenders, insurers, landlords, and platform partners evaluate Lantern.
03
Reuse the system
The next city starts with tested vendors, dashboards, contracts, staffing plans, and depot specifications.
04
Spread the overhead
Leadership, software, finance, and reporting support more cars and cities without growing one-for-one.
Operating dataBetter counterpartiesFaster city launchesMore shared cash flow
What 500 cars produce
$9.88M of operating profit before vehicle debt.
The model then pays $4.08M of annual vehicle loan payments and sets aside $0.75M for sites, leaving $5.05M of cash before taxes and owner distributions.
FLEET CONTRIBUTION$12.68M
Cash from 500 cars after their direct operating bills.
LESS COMPANY OVERHEAD($2.80M)
Leadership, finance, software, and shared operations.
OPERATING PROFIT$9.88M
Profit before vehicle loan payments, taxes, and distributions.
LESS CAR LOANS + SITE RESERVE($4.83M)
$4.08M of car loans plus $0.75M reserved for fleet sites.
CASH AFTER THOSE OBLIGATIONS$5.05M
Cash available before taxes, distributions, and additional growth investment.
Cash after operating bills, vehicle loans, site reserve, and overheadPlanning illustration
$5M$4M$3M$2M$1M$0
Cars, insurance, energy, cleaning, and maintenance grow with the active fleet.
Leadership, software, accounting, and lender reporting support more cars before another cost layer is needed.
Bulk buying, operating history, charger utilization, and financing terms can potentially improve the curve further.
Why $5.05M can look smaller than expected
The base case assumes five-year vehicle loans. At 500 cars, the fleet pays about $4.08M a year toward those loans. When a loan ends, that payment stops and cash can rise, but Lantern still needs a disciplined vehicle replacement reserve.
The chart holds per-car fares and direct costs constant. Central overhead is modeled at $650K, $850K, $1.60M, and $2.80M. Software revenue and financing improvements remain outside the base case. These are planning assumptions, not guaranteed results.
How the investment works
One equity round. One parent company. Three sources of capital.
Investors buy negotiated ownership in Lantern Fleet LLC. The lender and site partner receive contractual payments, not Lantern ownership.
EQUITY INVESTORS
$1.50MCash invested into Lantern Fleet LLC in exchange for a negotiated parent-company ownership stake.
OWNS PART OF LANTERNPARENT COMPANY
Lantern Fleet LLC
Owns Lantern OS, the playbook, and 100% of each city operator.
CITY 01Lantern Fleet Austin LLC
Operates 50 cars, signs the site, hires the team, and pays the bills.
VEHICLE LENDER
$1.60MSecured vehicle loan repaid monthly by the fleet.
NO LANTERN OWNERSHIPSITE PARTNER
$0.50MTargeted depot power installation paid to contractors and recovered through rent or service fees.
NO LANTERN OWNERSHIPSimply put: the investor owns part of the company that can build fleets in many cities. The lender finances cars. The site partner finances power. A vehicle SPV is added only if a lender requires it.
Austin to the network
Build once. Learn fast. Repeat deliberately.
Austin is not the end state. It is the operating proof that earns the right to launch the next market.
01
Close
Capital + site
Complete the parent equity round, vehicle facility, depot agreement, and operating partnerships.
02
Prove
First 10 cars
Validate utilization, charging, cleaning, maintenance response, and unit cash generation.
03
Scale
Austin to 50
Add vehicles in controlled tranches and build the city team around measured demand and uptime.
04
Repeat
City 02
Launch the next local fleet using Austin data, shared systems, and established capital relationships.
The opportunity
The first fleet creates cash. Lantern OS turns the operating model into a product.
Lantern is opening conversations with equity investors, vehicle lenders, charging partners, insurers, and autonomous mobility platforms.
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