Autonomous car startup Aurora Innovation, which acquired Uber’s self-driving unit in December, is becoming public through its merger with special-purpose acquisition firm Reyntant Technology Partner Y. The deal, announced Thursday, confirmed TechCrunch’s June report that final talks had begun with Speck, which began with LinkedIn co-founder and investor Red Hoffman, Zinger founder Mark Pincas, and managing partner Michael Thompson.
The joint venture, which will be listed with Nicardac’s ticker symbol AOR, will have an included valuation of $13 billion. The Aurora was last valued at $10 billion after the acquisition of Uber’s self-driving unit.
Funds and accounts managed by Aurora’s Bailey Giffford, Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley) through this agreement, t. The XN, Loyalty Management, and Research LLC are raising $1 billion from private investors, including funds and accounts, advised by Row Price Associates, Inc., a premacup management firm, Reentant Capital, as well as strategic investments from Uber, PACCAR and Volvo Group.
The combined company said that it is about $2.5 there are billion of dollars in cash at the time of the closure, ranging from the initial offer to $ 977.5 million in Reinant’s trust account, which was closed on March 18, 2021, according to regulatory filings. “This is a big next step for the company,” CEO and co-founder Chris Urmson said in an interview Thursday. “Of course we have to bring the product to market, but we can’t really encourage our team, the resources of this transaction, and our partners.”
Aurora has gone from a boozy startup to a public business-trade-spec in four years. The company was founded in 2017 by Sterling Anderson, Drew Bagnell, and Urmson, all of whom have a history of working with automated vehicle technology. In December, the company reached an agreement with Uber to buy a ride-healing firm’s self-driving unit in a complex deal that cost the joint venture $10 billion. Under the terms of the acquisition, Aurora did not provide cash for Uber ATG, a company valued at $7.25 billion, after investing $ 1 billion in 2019 from the vision funds of Toyota, Denso, and Softbank.
