Former Hyperloop One Executives Launch New Rival In Race To Design Hyperloop High-Speed Transportation Systems

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Veteran engineer Brogan BamBrogan announced today the formation of Arrivo - The Arrival Company, to commercialize technology for high-speed Hyperloop transportation systems in the United States and elsewhere.

BamBrogan, a former SpaceX engineer who most recently served as a co-founder and chief technology officer of Hyperloop One, will serve as chief executive of the new company. He is one of seven industry leaders who are co-founding Arrivo, including five former executives and engineers from Hyperloop One, and two engineers from SpaceX and AECOM.

"We're excited to have assembled such an amazing team of founders to take on this great challenge," BamBrogan said.  "We believe deeply in this concept and are eager to bring our unique vision to the market. Los Angeles is the center of engineering and innovation and we're proud to be headquartered in this great city."

Arrivo has initial funding in place and is rapidly building its engineering team, with 30+ employees expected to be in place by June and 70 to 80 by year-end. Beyond the lure of re-imagining earth's transportation network, Arrivo is also offering market-leading salaries and equity.   

Hyperloop is a next-generation transportation technology that can deliver cargo and passengers quickly, safely and efficiently. The concept was proven last month by student and research teams that entered a SpaceX sponsored competition to demonstrate the feasibility of the Hyperloop technology. 

Arrivo has several projects and partnerships moving forward and is on track to establish two test sites, one of which will be in the United States.  The company expects to have revenue-generating projects operational within three years.

BamBrogan said the co-founders named the company Arrivo after the Italian word for "arrival" to emphasize that the goal of travel is the destination, not the journey or the transportation experience. "Why travel when you can arrive?" he explained. 

Among the co-founders is Andrew Liu, who was most recently a senior vice president of Los Angeles based global engineering and construction firm AECOM, bringing 20+ years of experience designing transit infrastructure to the new company.  His first transit project in 1996 was in his hometown of Los Angeles for the Metro Gold Line.

"It's been an honor to support the growth of the Hyperloop industry from the infrastructure side.  After witnessing the landscape of companies getting into the space, I'm proud to bring Arrivo's vision to fruition, working alongside this talented group of company founders," Liu said.

The seven co-founders of Arrivo are:

Brogan BamBrogan was Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer at Hyperloop One before co-founding Arrivo. Brogan was a very early employee at SpaceX and spent nearly a decade there, where he helped put rockets into orbit and deliver goods to and from the International Space Station. Brogan's personal mantra is: "To build rad shit with rad people."

Nima Bahrami spent nearly two years as Vice President of Transponics with Hyperloop One. He led the successful execution of the company's first propulsion open air test. Mr. Bahrami served for 14 years in space and defense programs at Northrop Grumman and TRW, where he led embedded controls and software teams for laser weapons and communications programs and worked on spacecraft systems.

Jadon Smith co-founded Arrivo after spending over 10 years at SpaceX, where he developed the fluid systems needed to make the world's first fully and rapidly reusable rockets. He previously worked at Lockheed Martin and the Central Intelligence Agency, and holds a bachelor's degree from MIT and a master's degree from Stanford.

Knut Sauer was Vice President of Business Development at Hyperloop One before co-founding Arrivo. Previously, he led Siemens' Think Tank on Urban Mobility and Siemens' Transportation Infrastructure Consulting group. Before Siemens, Knut led several technology initiatives for Swiss Rail. He received a PhD in automated aircraft landing from Imperial College in London and an executive MBA on Transport Economics from London School of Economics.

Andrew Liu comes to Arrivo from global engineering and construction firm AECOM, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President of AECOM Ventures. He previously served as Vice President of AECOM's Los Angeles Transportation Group and was also a partner at Hatch Mott MacDonald, a North American tunnel engineering firm.  He holds a bachelor's and master's degree from UCLA and a MBA from the Wharton School.

William Mulholland was an early recruit of Hyperloop One where he led the finance, accounting, and business intelligence teams as Vice President of Finance. Before that, he held a leadership role at Adap.tv, which was acquired by AOL.

David Pendergast previously worked at Davis Polk & Wardwell and DLA Piper, where he advised investment banks and global companies on 30+ capital markets deals that raised $8.4 billion and 25+ merger & acquisition transactions. Prior to co-founding Arrivo, he structured and negotiated dozens of strategic partnerships at Hyperloop One and PCH as a senior executive. While at PCH, he also helped create two startup accelerators, Highway1 and PCH Access, and completed investments in more than 80 startups.

About Arrivo – The Arrival Company

Why travel when you can arrive? Arrivo is building technology based on the hyperloop architecture that will deliver a truly 21st century seamless experience for passengers and freight. Just as all well-designed technology is invisible to its users, Arrivo's hyperloop will shift transportation into a mode of "Arrival." We're building a world class team of engineers to deliver Arrival Technology that is fully networked, ultra-safe, 100% reliable and commercially sustainable. It's time for our generation's transportation system to arrive – Arrivo.

SOURCE Arrivo