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Startup EV Canoo goes public for $ 2.4 billion in a bid to raise enough money to help market its first vehicle, a VW microbus-type van that was first revealed Last year.
The company announced on Tuesday that it was merging with Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp IV, a special purpose “blank” acquisition company. As a result, Canoo will become a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ under the new symbol “CNOO”.
It’s the same type of “reverse merger” that hydrogen-powered trucking company Nikola started earlier this year to go public and that startup EV Fisker is currently trying to execute. Canoo is also the latest company to take advantage of a sudden fundraising frenzy in the electric vehicle start-up industry, which has seen new money go to Karma Automotive, Li Auto and XPeng in China, and others.
Canoo is unique in that it plans to offer its EV on a subscription-only basis when it goes into production in 2021, and it wants to manufacture other vehicle ‘cabins’ that will use the same platform of’ skateboard ‘underlying (the complete package of the battery, electric motors and other electronic components that make the vehicle move).
Originally called Evelozcity, Canoo was founded in late 2017 by Stefan Krause and Ulrich Kranz after their separation from struggling EV start-up Faraday Future. They had been hired earlier that year as part of an attempt to save the startup from financial collapse, but they eventually left after facing off against Faraday Future founder Jia Yueting.
Krause, former chief financial officer of BMW and Deutsche Bank, resigned as chairman of Canoo in June after stepping down as CEO last year. Krause stepped down as CEO just months before he and Canoo were sued by his wife for discrimination, harassment, breach of contract and wrongful termination. The lawsuit is currently being settled, according to Canoo.
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