Canoo is down to one co-founder as its CTO reportedly leaves

EV startup Canoo has lost co-founder and chief technology officer Sohel Merchant and is moving its operations out of Los Angeles, according to two reports from TechCrunch this week, citing unnamed sources.

Merchant took over the CTO position in 2021, when the company’s CTO left, along with two other co-founders. One of those who remained, chief designer Richard Kim, departed last year. With Merchant now reportedly gone, chief engineer Christoph Kuttner is the last founder standing at Canoo, according to TechCrunch yesterday.

Canoo wrote in a quarterly SEC filing on August 14th that it was “permanently” dropping its headcount as part of a reorganization plan for its Torrance, California facility, and offering to move “approximately 137” of 194 employees from there to either Oklahoma or Texas. Then, earlier this week, it told employees during a company meeting that it was shutting down its LA office, TechCrunch wrote on Thursday.