Rivian Automotive, the most-funded electric vehicle company ever in U.S. history, filed for an initial public offering. The filing disclosed that it had over 150,000 first orders for its battery-powered SUVs, pickups, and delivery trucks, and they also revealed that Amazon and Ford have stakes of 5percent or more.
The possible Tesla competitor, based in Irvine, California, filed an S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission late Friday. It was a follow-up to the announcement of a secret IPO filing late in August. The company announced that it has preorders for 48,390 R1T pickups and R1S SUVs from clients from Canada and the U.S. and Canada, each requiring a deposit of $1,000. It also has orders of 100,000 vans for delivery from investors Amazon that will be delivered until 2025.
According to the document, the principal shareholders of Rivian as it starts trading are Amazon, Ford, T. Rowe Price, Global Oryx Co., & Manheim expenditures. In addition, four of its nine board members are female, including its CFO Claire McDonough, Peloton director Karen Boone, previous Credit Suisse executive Pamela Thomas-Graham, and former Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario. Rivian has been valued at approximately $80 billion, according to PitchBook.
The company began production in its Normal, Illinois, plant in March. Rivian follows competitors Lucid and Fisker Inc., aiming to capture the most significant portion of the expanding demand for electric cars. The company was founded in 2009 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ph.D. RJ Scaringe, Rivian, arrives with both an impressive amount of capital–more than $10 billion. It also has significant backing in the automobile industry, such as Ford and the investor Cox Automotive.
“We can spend a lot of time to discuss the particulars of climate changes, but the inescapable fact is that we, human beings, have been quickly altering the structure of our planet. This is the reason I was inspired to establish Rivian and is the reason behind every decision we make as a company,” CEO Scaringe said in a letter addressed to investors included in the filing. “The problem is as large as it gets, but we’re fortunate to solve it by having enthusiastic team members and business partners.”
In addition to earning profits from the sale of cars, Rivian stated that the company would also earn money by selling environmental pollution credits for other car makers. It’s been a highly profitable business for Tesla, which has seen it remain within the black for several periods. From 2008 to the beginning second quarter of 2021, electric car makers headed by Elon Musk reported credit sales that total $4.8 billion.
Rivian’s Illinois plant, which was once a Mitsubishi Motors factory, can currently produce over 150,000 cars per year by the filing. “We anticipate that demand for vehicles will exceed our production levels shortly while we attempt to fill customers’ preorders and increase our inventory of preorders.”
The company did not disclose its founder’s stake in the company. Forbes estimations that his net worth to be $3.4 billion.
