IPO? Who Needs That? Rivian Lands Another $2.5 Billion

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

As you read earlier this morning, Rivian founder and CEO R.J. Scaringe isn’t all that impressed with the ability of some EV startups to wow Wall Street with lofty talk and exciting, but perhaps empty, promises. He’s more concerned with getting product out the door.

It’s perhaps because of Rivian’s conventional approach to car building that big-name firms seem more than willing to put their cash behind it. On Friday, the EV startup landed another bundle, and it’s a big one.

A new investment round led by T. Rowe Price swelled Rivian’s coffers by a further $2.5 billion, boosting its take to somewhere in the area of $6 billion. Late last year, another round of funding saw Rivian amass an extra $1.3 billion. The cash is needed to get the R1S SUV and R1T Pickup into production in Normal, Illinois and into customer hands early next year.

Among the financial backers this time around were Soros Fund Management LLC, Coatue, Fidelity Management and Research Company, and Baron Capital Group. Amazon and BlackRock, which already poured in their dollars in past funding rounds, poured in a little more.

“We are focused on the launch of our R1T, R1S and Amazon [van] delivery vehicles,” Scaringe said in a statement. “With all three launches occurring in 2021, our teams are working hard to ensure our vehicles, supply chain and production systems are ready for a robust production ramp up. We are grateful for the strong investor support that helps enable us to focus on execution of our products.”

[Image: Amazon]

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Schmitt trigger Schmitt trigger on Jul 10, 2020

    This note would be funny, hilarious even, until you realize those fund managers are playing with your retirement money.

  • Mathias Mathias on Jul 10, 2020

    Not with mine they ain't.

  • Old_WRX Old_WRX on Jul 10, 2020

    I'm a little skeptical that that windshield would make it to production. It looks like it would be very expensive to replace. Which, correct me if I'm wrong, would be unlikely to please companies considering fleet purchases.

    • See 4 previous
    • Old_WRX Old_WRX on Jul 11, 2020

      @mcs, Just looked again and you are right. Even on the conventional (with a nose) some of them are fancy and curved -- might be for aero. Just so you can use the fancy term the flat nosed buses would be called forward control (at least if the engine is in front). If the engine is in back then they might well refer to them as pushers. Ok, enough with the pedantic stuff:-)

  • SuperCarEnthusiast SuperCarEnthusiast on Jul 11, 2020

    $6 billion into the BEV company that has one product to be release; a pickup truck that cost like $80K! Yes they have specialized commercial delivery vans for Amazon and others too but $6 billion is still $6 billion.

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