Rivian, possibly the only other electric vehicle maker with the financial and technological might to take on Tesla, is adding billions more to its already strong cash reserve. Rivian has raised a gigantic $2.5 billion, its largest investment till date, in a round led by T. Rowe Price Associates.
T. Rowe Price Associates has been an avid investor in the company, and a believer of its vision for the future electric automobile industry. This is why, the firm decided to lead Rivian’s current round, along with other existing investors like Amazon and Blackrock. The round also witnessed huge capital coming from new mediums, as many unfamiliar names participated in the investment, including Soros Fund Management LLC, Coatue, Fidelity Management and Research Company, and Baron Capital Group.
Rivian isn’t exactly new to billion dollar investments, and closed the last financial year with about $2.85 billion in investments coming through its door, in a series of funding rounds. The year 2019 started with a $700 million round led by Amazon, and then witnessed multiple investments, including $500 million from Ford and $350 million Cox Automotive in September. However, the biggest investment of the year came from a funding round led by the same T. Rowe Price Associates, which netted the company $1.3 billion.
The company seems to have an aversion from going public, and has announced no such move as of yet.
Rivian has huge plans for the automobile industry, and finally claim the same fame its ‘rivals’ get. Moreover, it looks like it might actually stand a chance, due to the edge it has gained over its competitors. Even though Rivian’s plans for launching the world’s first all electric pickup truck were delayed by months due to COVID-19, it is still on track to become one of the first companies to launch the vehicle segment, if not the first overall. The R1T and R1S were supposed to go into production in 2020, but have been pushed back to early 2021, a timeline that still puts Rivian months, if not years ahead of its competitors.
While all other companies still have a long way to go, and Tesla’s Cybertruck not going into manufacturing for at least an year, Rivian might just be the first one to burst through the door. Moreover, while Tesla is still planning to set up a facility for the Cybertruck’s manufacturing process, Rivian has already found an abandoned Mitsubishi Motors plant in Normal, Illinois, and is spending more than $750 million to equip, renovate and expand the facility ahead of production.
This edge that Rivian has over its competition has won it the support of Amazon, which has placed a pre order of 100,000 vans for delivery purposes. The vehicles will be rolled out as part of Amazon’s delivery fleet over a course of 10 years, with the company expecting to get the first 10,000 by 2022.
