Jenny Elizabeth Larios Berlin

Former Optimus Ride co-founder and COO, Jenny Larios Berlin, joined The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship as Entrepreneur-in-Residence, in January 2022. Optimus Ride was acquired (Jan 2022) by Magna (NYSE:MGA; TSX:MG), a global innovator in mobility technology and best known as one of the world’s largest suppliers in the automotive space.

In addition to her 6+ years building Optimus Ride, Larios Berlin also co-founded limeSHIFT, a socially-driven creative agency, working at the intersection of business, community, and art. She has been a frequent speaker at MIT and valued mentor to MIT students and beyond.

Her most recent company, Optimus Ride, was founded in 2015 as an autonomous vehicle (AV) spin out from MIT that enables safe, sustainable, and equitable mobility access. By the time it was acquired by Magna, it had raised over $75M including top tier venture capitalists and employed well over 150 high-quality jobs.

In 2017, Optimus Ride began testing its vehicles on the streets of Boston with early MassDOT AV approval. The next year it launched its inaugural pilot program for residential community mobility at Union Point in Weymouth, MA. By 2019 the company was scaling its deployment operations to service communities in California, Washington, DC, Virginia, and New York. In 2020, in response to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Optimus Ride repurposed its fleets to deliver over 6,000 free meals to those in need in Washington, DC. The company was positively received by the press as well including a feature article in MIT Technology Review.

Larios Berlin will work with the Trust Center’s Entrepreneur in Residence (EIRs) to:
(*) coach students;
(*) design, update, and run co-curricular programs;
(*) teach in the classroom;
(*) interface with alumni;
(*) provide an external interface for the center;
(*) work with industrial partners;
(*) create reusable educational content, and
(*) generate and execute on new ideas in other “TBD” areas that continue to support making the Trust Center an innovative leader in the field of entrepreneurship education.