The ambitious $2.2B figure is nearly a tripling of Acorns’ reported valuation from just two years ago, but it’s far from the only closely watched OC company plotting such a quick rise in valuation upon going public, and it’s also not close to being the largest up-and-comer based here doing so.
Reports late last month from Bloomberg indicate that electric vehicle maker Rivian is seeking a staggering $70B valuation in its potential IPO later this year, an offering that would be underwritten by blue-chippers Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
Earlier reports just a few months ago pegged a $50B valuation for Rivian post-IPO. A funding deal near the start of 2021 for the Ford, Amazon and T. Rowe Price-backed company valued it around $25B. In early 2020, an $8B figure was commonly cited.
Reaching the early 2021 valuation of $25B would make Rivian OC’s fourth largest public company, trailing Skyworks Solutions Inc. (Nasdaq: SWKS). The mid-range $50B value would place it second, topping Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG). Were it to reach that sky-high $70B value, it would nearly equal the combined market caps of current No. 1 Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE: EW) and No. 4 Masimo (Nasdaq: MASI).
Not bad for an automaker whose first products for consumers, an electric-powered pickup truck and SUV, have yet to hit the market.
Another way of looking at Rivian’s charged-up expectations: Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), the third most valuable car company based in the U.S., is currently worth about $64B. Tesla (NYSE: TSLA) is No. 1 with a $550B market cap.
With tens of billions at stake, no wonder that Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe has reportedly decamped from his Irvine-area home to a spot close to the company’s manufacturing plant in Normal, Ill., to help get the company’s first consumer products to market as soon as possible.
Deliveries of its first electric-powered trucks, the R1T, were previously expected to start this month. That date was recently pushed back to July. The R1Ts will start around $67.5K.
Deliveries of Rivian’s R1S sport utility vehicles are still scheduled to start this fall. They’ll cost about $77,500.
It would require Rivian to sell about a million of its SUVs and trucks to approach the $70B mark in revenue for the company, not factoring in sales of its electric-powered delivery vans to financial partner Amazon and potentially others down the road.
Tesla sold about 500,000 cars last year, up nearly 36% year-over-year.
