Amazon-backed Rivian aims for $66.5 billion market value as the Tesla rival goes public at a higher price than expected
- EV startup Rivian is targeting a market valuation of $66.5 billion in its blockbuster IPO on Wednesday.
- Rivian has priced its IPO at $78 per share, higher than expected, and it expects to raise $11.9 billion.
Amazon-backed EV startup Rivian priced its initial public offering at $78 per share, giving the company a market value of $66.5 billion as it gears up for one of the biggest floats in US history on Wednesday.
Rivian said in a filing on Tuesday night that it had sold 153 million shares at $78 per share, having previously expected to sell 135 million at between $72 and $74.
The company expects to raise $11.9 billion from the share sale, which would put it in the top 10 biggest IPOs of all time, according to Renaissance Capital data. It will trade on the Nasdaq exchange with the ticker RIVN.
Rivian was founded in 2009 and builds electric vehicles, with a focus on trucks. The company made a loss of $994 million in the first six months of the year as it spent heavily to ramp up production.
Despite its big losses, its $78-a-share IPO price would give the company a market value of $66.5 billion. That would put Rivian in the same ballpark as General Motors, worth $85.1 billion, and Ford, worth $80.4 billion. Fellow EV startup Lucid, which went public earlier this year via a SPAC deal, has a $74.3 billion market capitalization.
The sky-high valuation is a sign of the lofty expectations for Rivian. Investors' hopes have no doubt been spurred by the success of Tesla, whose revenue came in at $13.8 billion in the third quarter and which now has a market capitalization of more than $1 trillion.
Rivian boasts big name investors including Ford and Amazon, which owned 14.4% and 22.4% of class A shares respectively prior to the IPO.
Amazon has ordered 100,000 trucks for delivery by 2025. Rivian overall has 55,400 preorders for its R1T truck and R1S SUV, which it expects to fulfil by 2023.
To try to drum up interest on Main Street, Rivian plans to sell up to 0.4% of the shares on offer to retail investors through SoFi Securities. In IPOs, most of the stock is sold by the underwriters to institutions and will only become available to retail investors when it's resold in the following days.