Electric pickup truck startup Rivian is closing in on a new financing round that would put its valuation at an impressive $25 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Rivian is a money-raising machine
Since coming onto the scene in a big way in late 2018 with the unveiling of its R1T and R1S electric trucks, Rivian has managed to raise an impressive amount of money from big investors.
In February 2019, Rivian took a $700 million round of funding led by Amazon, and Ford invested $500 million in the electric pickup startup just two months later.
The startup also added Cox Automotive as an investor with a $350 million round in September.
It topped off its 2019 with a massive $1.3 billion round of funding in December.
In 2020, the company went back to the bank and managed to raise another $2.5 billion from existing investors and also T. Rowe Price, an important investor in Tesla.
It brought the total raised by Rivian to over $5 billion in just two years.
Rivian valued at $25 billion?
Now, the company is reportedly going back to the well with a new round of financing about to close, according to a new report from Bloomberg:
“Several existing Rivian investors are participating in the round, which will raise several billion dollars, the people added, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.”
While the exact amount to be raised is not known, the report states that it would put the valuation of the company at about $25 billion despite having yet to deliver a product.
For comparison, Ford, which is an early investor in Rivian, is valued at $33 billion.
Electrek’s Take: I’d actually invest at that price
While $25 billion might sound expensive for a company that has yet to deliver a product, I think it might actually be a good price.
You have to take into account all the critical partners that Rivian has secured, especially Amazon and the fact that the retail giant has placed a massive order of 100,000 vehicles with the company.
Furthermore, while we don’t have the data, I’m willing to bet that Rivian’s R1T and R1S orders are looking good, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they back-ordered into 2022.
While they have already experienced delays and have yet to deliver a vehicle, I think that they are the best positioned to bring an electric pickup truck to production this year.
The betting odds even reflected that when a betting site started taking bets on the race to deliver an electric pickup truck.
Also, in a world where every other EV company is rushing to do a SPAC deal to go public, Rivian seems happy to stick to venture capital and stay away from the hype until they deliver a product. I respect that.
Though I wouldn’t be surprised if they go public later this year or early in 2022 after starting deliveries of the R1T/R1S and the Amazon delivery van.
By that time, Ford’s stake in Rivian could strangely be worth more than its own market cap.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
