av/ev

Microsoft Backs GM’s Cruise and Rivian Announces New Financing

Two multibillion-dollar deals from yesterday
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Illustration: Francis Scialabba, Photo: Cruise

· less than 3 min read

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From Silicon Valley to the Big Three’s boardrooms in Detroit to the nearly 500,000 consumers who bought Teslas last year, we’re seeing incredible levels of enthusiasm for electrified vehicles. It also feels like an inflection point for autonomy, too, even though there are fewer commercialized products.

To show you what we mean, allow us to present two multibillion dollar deals from yesterday alone.

EV momentum in the private markets

Rivian said yesterday it’s pulled in an additional $2.65 billion at a $27 billion valuation. It’s eyeing a 2021 release for its all-electric R1T truck and R1S SUV.

  • On the commercial side, Rivian has a 100,000 EV delivery van purchase order from Amazon—a customer and investor. The vans should start rolling out of a Rivian production plant later this year
  • BlackRock, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, and Ford have also invested in Rivian, which has raised $8 billion in total since the beginning of 2019.

Microsoft picks a robo-workhorse

Microsoft hadn’t made a big bet in the autonomous space until yesterday. Along with other institutional investors, Microsoft backed GM’s Cruise with $2 billion. Azure will be the legacy automaker’s “preferred cloud provider.”

About Cruise: GM acquired the startup and Y Combinator alum for over $1 billion in 2016. At that time, Cruise had just 40 employees (fewer than Morning Brew). The Microsoft deal brings Cruise’s valuation to $30 billion.

  • GM’s stock jumped nearly 10% Tuesday morning and, as of press time, its market cap was roughly $79 billion. In other words, Cruise accounts for an eye-popping 38% of GM’s value.

New vocab term

CASE is shorthand for the four horsemen of new mobility—Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric. While the pandemic has temporarily decimated the use of “shared” mobility modalities, they will eventually make a comeback. As you can see from all of this activity on a single Tuesday, the other three letters are holding steady.

+ While we’re here: Aurora officially closed the Uber ATG deal yesterday and announced a partnership with PACCAR to develop autonomous trucks. Also, Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group completed their merger. The combined entity, which started trading as $STLA yesterday, shot up 11%.

Keep up with the innovative tech transforming business

Tech Brew keeps business leaders up-to-date on the latest innovations, automation advances, policy shifts, and more, so they can make informed decisions about tech.