EV startup Canoo goes public on a $ 2.4 billion valuation in an effort to raise enough money to help launch the first car, a microbus-style VW bus that was first unveiled last year. to bring the brand.
The company announced Tuesday that it has merged with Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp IV, a so-called ‘low-control’ specialty acquisition company. As a result, Canoo will be a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ under the new ticker “CNOO.”
It’s the same type of “reverse fusion” move that hydrogen transport company Nikola pulled earlier this year to go public and that EV startup Fisker is currently trying to implement. Canoo is also the latest company to bring in money on a sudden funding spree in the space for launching electric cars, which has seen fresh money from Karma Automotive, China’s Li Auto and XPeng, 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 make other cars “toilets” that will have the same underlying “skateboard” platform use (the complete package of the battery pack, electric motors, and other electronics that move the car).
Originally called Evelozcity, Canoo was founded in late 2017 by Stefan Krause and Ulrich Kranz, after they shared their troubled EV startup Faraday Future. They were hired earlier that year as part of an effort to save the startup from financial collapse, but eventually left after colliding with Faraday Future founder Jia Yueting.
Krause, a former chief financial officer at both BMW and Deutsche Bank, stepped down as chairman of Canoo in June after stepping down as CEO last year. Krause left his position as CEO just a few months before he and Canoo were filed by his wife for discrimination, harassment, breach of contract, and wrongful termination. The lawsuit is currently pending, according to Canoo.
