Investors are pouring money into EV companies—as shares in Tesla, Nio and newly public Nikola soar, Rivian, which has attracted loads of media attention for its planned electric pickup and SUV, has raised $2.5 billion in new funding in a round led by T. Rowe Price.
The company has raised about $6 billion in funding so far.
CEO Robert Scaringe said in June that Rivian has no plans to go public at the moment, but is open to more funding to support its aggressive growth plans. “We’re well-capitalized to launch the products but we are rapidly growing and accelerating some of our future products. We’re seeing demand being significantly higher than what we initially anticipated, which is leading us to [raise capital] for higher levels of volume.”
Scaringe told CNBC that Rivian is totally focused on launching its products. “We’re not planning or thinking about exit events, liquidity events at this point. We have access to private capital, which allows us to focus on execution. This is not easy—you need thousands of engineers working on the technical aspects, you need a production system that takes years to build and to launch, and you need commercial retail and service infrastructure,” Scaringe said. “We’re completely focused on getting all those pieces built.”
Rivian is investing more than $750 million to renovate and expand its factory in Normal, Illinois.
Rivian hopes to have its R1T pickup on the road by mid-2021, and some industry observers expect it to be the first to bring an electric pickup truck to market (Lordstown Motors may have something to say about that).
“At this stage, [Rivian is] farther along than pretty much anybody,” Navigant Analyst Sam Abuelsamid told CNBC. “They’ve been developing this truck and platform for quite a long time. Certainly, longer than Tesla has been working on the Cybertruck or Nikola has been working on the Badger.”
Source: CNBC