Starting self-guiding trucks Robotics Kodiak Plans to be made public through the merger with the special purpose acquisition company Ares Acquisition Corporation II.
Kodiak transactions, which increased about $ 243 million to date, to about $ 2.5 billion before money. Kodiak’s new and existing institutional investors, such as fund Soros management, Ark’s investment and Ares, funded or committed more than $ 110 million to support the transaction, as well as about $ 551 million in confidence.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2025.
Transition to the public through SPAC is an interesting move at a time when the self-driving truck has experienced some great successes, including high profile players, such as the Exchint and Tusimple they close. The spacs have also lost much of their flash from the peak of 2021, especially for capital intensity companies such as AV and EV Startups.
Kodiak has something about it, at least. It is that it generates revenue, though that the revenue is probably scarce. Kodiak, who says he has led 2.6 million miles autonomously, eventually wants to commercially commercialize long -distance trucking companies. In the short term, the company has sought off -road autonomy as a faster marge to the market.
In January, Kodiak delivered the first two autonomous trucks to Energy Atlas Energy solutions, marking the first trade launch. Atlas is committed to buying an initial order of 100 trucks to assist its Frac Sand activities in the remote West Texas Basin.
This piece of revenue validates Kodiak’s technology more than newly established businesses, which have been the largest part of SPAC mergers in recent years and could open the door for investment. Taking, the course to profitability is long and the capital needs of autonomy is enormous.
TechCrunch arrived at Kodiak to find out more about how long their current corridor is, but it did not receive an immediate answer.
Kodiak’s public market debut comes during a hectic period in public markets, largely due to President Trump’s invoices and the subsequent trade war. It also comes as one of Kodiak’s main competitors, Aurora Innovation, is scheduled to start fully launched truck -free business businesses this month.
Kodiak CEO Don Burnette founded the company in 2018 after years of experience in autonomous driving. He has previously worked on Google’s self-guiding technology before leaving early 2016 to help OTTO start, an AV starting with Anthony Levandowski, Lior Ron and Claire Delaunay. Otto was acquired by Uber, but things unfolded quickly, as Waymo sued Uber, accusing Levandowski of theft of a commercial secret. Uber finally settled with Waymo and Levandowski was later accused and admitted guilty. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison, but gave President Trump before serving time.
Burnette, who had already left Otto before the Levandowski drama, managed to avoid the phenomenon and continue his main goal – his dissertation was that the truck would be the Killer application for autonomy.
“We believe that entry into public markets will accelerate our strategy to expand our existing partners’ relationships, provide our technology to a wider customer base, and to provide improved solutions to all commercial truck and public sector industries,” Burnette said.
