Rivian has secured another massive $2.5 billion round of funding led by former major Tesla investor T. Rowe Price and more.
The electric vehicle startup has yet to bring a vehicle to production, but it is a juggernaut when it comes to raising money.
In February 2019, Rivian took a $700 million round of funding led by Amazon, and Ford invested $500 million in the electric pickup startup just two months later.
The startup also added Cox Automotive as an investor with a $350 million round in September.
It topped it off in December 2019 with a massive $1.3 billion round of funding.
Now Rivian has announced another round of investment almost twice as big as the last one.
Today, the startup announced a new $2.5 billion round of funding – its first in 2020:
“Rivian has closed an investment round of $2.5 billion. The financing was led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc.”
T. Rowe Price used to be one of Tesla’s biggest investors before it sold most of its shares last year.
Joe Fath, portfolio manager of T. Rowe Price Growth Stock Fund, commented on the investment round:
“We are excited to continue this journey with Rivian’s innovative and talented team as they now prepare to deliver their groundbreaking products that help shift to a carbon-neutral planet,”
Rivian disclosed the other investors in the round:
- Soros Fund Management LLC,
- Coatue
- Fidelity Management and Research Company
- Baron Capital Group
- Amazon
- BlackRock
Baron Capital Group, Fidelity, and Blackrock are also all current major investors in Tesla.
Rivian Founder and CEO RJ Scaringe commented on the round and gave a brief update:
“We are focused on the launch of our R1T, R1S and Amazon delivery vehicles. 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,”
The R1T electric pickup and R1S electric SUV were first supposed to hit the market in late 2020, but the timeline has slipped amid the pandemic.
Rivian is now guiding a launch in 2021 without specifying how late in 2021 the timeline has been pushed.
Electrek’s Take
As I’ve stated in the past, Rivian is a money-raising machine. If you are counting, that’s now more than $5 billion raised over the last 2 years.
The good news is that they have to have the money needed to bring their vehicles to market at this point. There’s no doubt.
While I know that EV fans have doubts about new startups since we have been burned before, Rivian seems to be the exception.
Even though they haven’t delivered anything yet, it looks like they might be hitting the ground running with this kind of financial backing.
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