The automaker is coming to market after an explosion of EV hype in recent times—largely pushed by headline magnets like Tesla and Lucid—which put Rivian’s providing on observe to be one of many yr’s most hotly anticipated. Eleven years after Tesla debuted at a complete price of underneath $2 billion, Rivian is eyeing a monster valuation of $77 billion and a attainable slot among the many high ten largest IPOs in U.S. historical past, according to Bloomberg.
Right here’s what to know:
Table of Contents
The fundamentals
Rivian stock will commerce on the Nasdaq underneath the ticker RIVN. Shares have been priced Tuesday at $78—above the goal vary of $72-$74, which had already been raised from $57-$62 every week earlier—in a glowing signal for the corporate. That pricing places its valuation north of legacy automakers Honda and Ferrari, in addition to Chinese language EV big Nio, and only a couple billion south of American powerhouses Ford and Normal Motors. Spectacular, for a corporation that shipped its first automobiles this previous month.
Analyst chatter suggests Rivian may turn into the “subsequent Tesla,” a imaginative and prescient that Rivian itself pitched throughout its investor roadshow.
What’s Rivian’s story?
Rivian was created by a doctoral engineering graduate from the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how in 2009. It then operated in stealth mode for practically a decade—accumulating greater than $500 million in funding alongside the way in which—earlier than unveiling its flagship merchandise in 2018: a gas-free pickup truck and sport utility automobile. It took a further three years to roll the pickup truck off the manufacturing facility line in September 2021, when Rivian grew to become the primary automaker to promote and ship battery-charged vans in the US, beating Ford and GM to the punch. The SUV remains to be in manufacturing on the firm’s Regular, Illinois, manufacturing plant.
How does it examine to rivals?
Extra rugged and all-terrain than business chief Tesla—which makes a speciality of sedans—Rivian has succeeded in carving a distinct segment for itself. These efforts have been boosted in 2019 when e-commerce big Amazon signed a contract to order as much as 100,000 electrical vans by 2024 as a part of its zero-carbon push. In response to Securities and Change Fee filings, that deal additionally included unique rights to the supply vans for Amazon for 4 years, a clause that analysis agency New Constructs recently concluded may “considerably hamper Rivian’s skill to seize market share”—nonetheless, a number of days in the past the corporate quietly revealed it might start promoting its vans and SUVs in fleets to industrial consumers in 2022, which may fight the difficulty.
It can additionally must jockey with big-name rivals who’re releasing their very own flashy electrical vans within the coming months, together with Ford’s F-150 Lightning, GM’s new Hummer, and Tesla’s Cybertruck.
Present numbers and backers?
Amazon owns roughly 20% of Rivian, and Ford has round a 5% stake. Rivian has posted widening internet losses, from $426 million in 2019, to $1 billion in 2020, to $1 billion within the first half of 2021. It expects extra losses over the following a number of years till it ramps up automobile manufacturing.
Newest controversies?
Rivian is dealing with a number of high-profile authorized battles. It’s nonetheless preventing a lawsuit filed by Tesla final yr, which claimed Rivian was poaching employees and stealing proprietary battery formulation. (Rivian has denied any wrongdoing, as Insider reported in October.) And final week, a former feminine government filed a gender discrimination lawsuit claiming Rivian fired her for talking up about an alleged firm tradition that marginalizes ladies workers. Notably, the manager’s declare additionally included allegations that Rivian suffers from high quality management issues and unattainable supply targets. (We’ve reached out to the corporate for remark on this lawsuit.)
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The underside line?
Rivian’s IPO will gauge whether or not investor mania over EV shares nonetheless exists after a latest crop of startups has flooded the market with considerably bumpy returns, together with midwestern hopefuls Workhorse and Lordstown Motors. And as at all times with such early-stage firms, it’s going to take a look at how keen they’re to purchase into lofty guarantees of bold development.
