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Canoo is the latest electric vehicle company to use the 'reverse merger' to make it public.
EV startup Canoo is going public at a premium of $2.4 billion in an attempt to collect more funds to help get its first product, a VW microbus-style van that was first introduced last year, to the market.
The firm revealed on Tuesday that it had merged with Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp IV, the so-called "blank check" special purpose acquisition firm. As a result, Canoo will become a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ under the new "CNOO" ticker.
EV startup Canoo is going public at a premium of $2.4 billion in an attempt to collect more funds to help get its first product, a VW microbus-style van that was first introduced last year, to the market.
The firm revealed on Tuesday that it had merged with Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp IV, the so-called "blank check" special purpose acquisition firm. As a result, Canoo will become a publicly traded company listed on NASDAQ under the new "CNOO" ticker.
It's the same sort of "reverse takeover" change that Nikola 's hydrogen trucking firm carried out earlier this year to go public and that Fisker's EV startup is now attempting to implement.
Canoo is also the latest company to cash in on a sudden funding frenzy in the electric vehicle start-up space that saw fresh money go to Karma Automotive, China's Li Auto and XPeng, and others.
Canoo is unique in that it plans to offer its EV on a subscription basis only when it enters production in 2021 and wants to make other vehicle "cabins" that use the same underlying "skateboard" platform (full package of battery packs, electric motors and other electronics that move the vehicle).
Originally called Evelozcity, Canoo was created at the end of 2017 by Stefan Krause and Ulrich Kranz after they broke off from the failing Faraday Future EV startup. They were recruited earlier that year as part of an effort to rescue the company from financial ruin, but eventually they quit because they had disagreed with Faraday Future ceo Jia Yueting.
Krause, former Chief Financial Officer of both BMW and Deutsche Bank, resigned as Chairman of Canoo in June after stepping away from the CEO position last year. Krause left office as CEO just a few months before his wife and Canoo were arrested for sexism, harassment, breach of contract, and unfair termination.
