Deal of the week Another day, another transportation IPO announcement. This time, it is Swedish carmaker Volvo Cars, which is owned by China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding. Volvo Cars said it would file for an initial public offering and list on the Nasdaq Stockholm exchange, in a transaction that’s expected to raise up to $2.9 billion (25 billion Swedish kroner). The IPO is interesting on its own. But what I find so intriguing is that just the week before, Volvo Cars’ electric performance spinoff Polestar announced its own plans to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company. It seems likely that the timing is not a coincidence; according to WSJ reporting, the Polestar SPAC assigned a value of around $10 billion to Volvo’s stake in the company, paving the way for Volvo’s IPO. Other deals that got my attention this week … Arbe Robotics, a radar startup that merged with a special purpose acquisition company, made its public debut October 8 on the Nasdaq exchange. The company is trading under the “ARBE” ticker symbol. On the first day of trading, Arbe shares opened at $7.95 and closed at $8.10. Northvolt is investing $750 million to expand off of Northvolt Labs, its existing cell industrialization plant in Sweden. The plan is to build adjacent testing facilities and a pilot recycling plant, which will feed recycled raw materials directly into on-site production. The company wants the campus, which will eventually employ 1,000 people, to become a leading center for battery technologies. Otto, a Dallas-based fintech startup that wants to allow people to use their vehicle’s equity for access to credit, raised $4.5 million in a seed round of funding led by Uncommon Capital and included participation from Pelion Venture Partners, 1930 Capital, Bloom VP and Spacecadet Ventures. Other investors include Mark Cuban, entrepreneur and Shark Tank investor; Leo Polovets, co-founder and general partner at Susa Ventures; Bill Clerico, co-founder and CEO of WePay; and Vivek Garipalli, co-founder and CEO of Clover Health. Otto’s mobile platform is set to launch in early 2022. Ouster, a lidar company that went public this year via a SPAC merger, agreed to acquire solid-state lidar startup Sense Photonics in an all-stock deal valued at around $68 million. Ouster said it will establish a new business arm, Ouster Automotive, which will be headed by Sense CEO Shauna McIntyre. That business will integrate Sense’s 200-meter range solid-state lidar into a new lidar suite. San Francisco-based Sense’s claim to fame is also its improved field of view, as TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey has previously explained. Qualcomm scored the purchase of Swedish automotive tech company Veoneer, nudging out Magna International with a higher bid. Qualcomm and investment group SSW Partners will acquire Veoneer for $37 per share in an all-cash transaction. At closing, SSW said it would sell Veoneer’s Arriver tech — an advanced driver assistance system stack that includes sensors and software — to Qualcomm and retain the Swedish company’s other Tier 1 supplier businesses. Veoneer had previously agreed to sell itself to Magna. Rendered.ai, a two-year-old data startup that is generating synthetic data for the satellite, medical, robotics and automotive industries, raised a $6 million seed round led by Space Capital, with participation from Tectonic Ventures, Congruent Ventures, Union Labs and Uncorrelated Ventures. Tekion, the end-to-end automotive SaaS platform startup launched by Tesla’s former CIO, raised $250 million in a Series D financing round co-led by Alkeon Capital and Durable Capital. Other investors include Hyundai Motor Company, several dealer groups across the U.S., and earlier backers Advent International, Index Ventures and FM Capital. The round has pushed the company’s valuation from $1 billion to $3.5 billion. It has raised a total of 435 million. Tenstreet, a truck driver recruiting software company, is now majority owned by private equity firm Providence Equity Partners. Existing investor Spectrum Equity and Tenstreet Co-founder and CEO Tim Crawford will maintain their minority stakes. TruckLabs, a Stanford spin-out that has developed hardware and software to reduce fuel consumption in long-haul trucks, raised a $15 million Series A round co-led by returning investors Calibrate Ventures, Autotech Ventures, and Uncork Capital. To date, TruckLabs has raised $24 million. Volcon, an all-electric off-road powersports company, closed its initial public offering of 3,025,000 shares of common stock at a public offering price of $5.50. The gross proceeds of the offering were $16.6 million before deducting underwriting discounts, commissions and offering expenses. The company is trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the symbol “VLCN.” Voom, the commercial drone insurer, has raised $15 million to expand its usage-based insurance model to motorcycles, light aircraft, ride-hailing and delivery drivers. The funding round was co-led by JAL Ventures and UP.Partners, with participation from F2 Capital, Arbor Ventures, Verizon Ventures and ICON Continuity Fund. The company, which launched a pay-per-mile insurance product for motorcycles in August, has raised a total of $22 million. Zaver, a Swedish fintech startup that built a platform that lets merchants accept cardless payments and offer buy-now-pay-later as an option, raised $13 million in a Series A round. ZF signed a strategic partnership agreement with autonomous vehicle software company Oxbotica to develop a Level 4 self-driving system that will initially be deployed in passenger shuttles in major cities around the world, the companies said. Zūm, a startup that provides optimized transportation services for school-age children, raised $130 million in a Series D round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2 with participation from existing investors including Sequoia, BMW i Ventures and AngelPad. The company intends to use the funds to add 10,000 new electric buses, vans and cars to its platform with the end goal of achieving 100% EVs by 2025. Currently, the company’s fleet has 1,000 vehicles, and they’re mainly all internal combustion engine vehicles. |
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