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Gogoro is the latest EV company to jump on the IPO trend by merging with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company, or SPAC. The Taiwanese electric scooter and battery swap tech startup announced Thursday that it will combine with a SPAC called Poema Global Holdings, which is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The deal – which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022 – will net Gogoro around $ 550 million and value the startup at more than $ 2.3 billion.
This is a big step for the scooter business, which has grown rapidly this year. In April, Gogoro announced a partnership with the world’s largest two-wheeler manufacturer to bring its electric scooter and battery technology to India. This was Gogoro’s biggest push outside Taiwan to date – until May, when he announced an expansion into China through two more partnerships with established local players. Then, in June, Gogoro announced a partnership with Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn – which has quickly branched out into electric vehicles – that is supposed to “further accelerate Gogoro’s global expansion.”
Foxconn is contributing an undisclosed amount to the so-called “private investment in public capital” portion of the PSPC merger – essentially a fundraiser that goes on concurrently with the transaction. (PIPE will bring a total of just over $ 250 million, while $ 345 million will come from Poema Global Holdings SPAC.) The iPhone assembler is also working with startup EV Fisker Inc., and has a agreement with China’s largest private automobile manufacturer. , Geely. It has also developed its own EV platform for other car makers to use. (At least one of his forays into electric vehicles failed because Nikkei reported this week that Foxconn had given up on its investment in struggling Chinese startup Byton.)
Founded in 2011 by two former HTC executives, Gogoro stepped out of stealth mode at the Consumer Electronics Show 2015, where he revealed a sleek electric scooter powered by two small, swappable batteries. (In fact, it won our “Best in Show” award that year.) The company has spent the past six years since realizing the vision it set out when it started: to create a vast network of Battery swap stations across Taiwan that make it easy for owners to quickly “top up” their scooters. Gogoro takes the technology one step further, however, by letting these battery swap stations interact with – and sometimes help power – the local power grid.
The company has also played around with other ideas along the way. She has offered her two-wheelers to various scooter-sharing programs around the world. And he also released an electric bicycle “sports car” in 2020 intended to promote an all-in-one motor designed by the company.
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