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The Electric Truck Race

The Electric Truck Race
June 12, 2020

The stock price of Nikola soared after its IPO, which reignited the race to launch the first broadly commercialized electric truck. Per WSJ, "Phoenix-based Nikola, which hasn’t yet sold any vehicles, has targeted the commercial trucking sector, where companies like Amazon.com and United Parcel Service have pledged to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistics operations."

Also dominating the news cycle is Tesla’s ambition. Tesla's chief executive Elon Musk said that it is time to bring its semi commercial truck to 'volume production,' as the U.S. electric vehicle maker ramps up vehicle production after a brief virus-related shutdown, Reuters reports based on an internal email.

Meanwhile, a slew of smaller and private companies focused on the industry is quietly raising money and ramping up production progress, including mature car companies such as Hummer, who is desperately trying to rebrand its image from an oil guzzler to an environmentally-friendly smart car.

 


 


Looting might have generated extra business for second-hand websites. Instead of taking goods they need to live, looters targetted luxury goods they can most easily sell online.

Economically speaking, looting can generate cash for the looters if they can find a resale buyer. Only a few years ago, it was difficult and expensive to fence a luxury handbag or a designer jacket. But today, authenticating and selling sought-after goods for retail price or higher is as easy as logging on to websites like StockX, The RealReal, or Vestiaire Collective.

The circular economy helps to reduce waste and can efficiently keep luxury goods in the hands of those who value them most highly. But while internet platforms are good at guaranteeing authenticity, they can't guarantee that the items for sale aren't stolen.

 

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Electric Truck:

Chanje’s V8100s are already on the roads. In 2018, Ryder System announced it would buy 900 of Chanje’s Class 5 electric vans to lease to FedEx. The company’s nearly 30-foot long V8100 electric medium-duty panel van can carry a 3-ton payload. What’s more, the van’s lithium-ion battery pack holds enough charge for a 150-mile range. According to the company, that’s more than double the number of miles the majority of commercial delivery vans drive in a day.

Rivian's R1T has garnered a vast amount of interest and held on to it. Even better, the company has a lot of credibility behind its upcoming EV pickup, thanks to an influx of investments from companies such as Amazon and Ford.

Nikola is best known for its work to bring electric and fuel cell-powered semi-trucks to market, but this March, it decided to toss its hat into the electric pickup game. Nikola's Badger will combine batteries with a hydrogen-fed fuel cell system to create some pretty tantalizing specs.

BYD is eyeing the short-haul goods movement sector, primarily in America’s ports, rail yards and freight-handling facilities. BYD is headquartered in Shenzhen, China, with offices and an assembly factory in Lancaster, California. In 2020, it’s preparing to roll out more of its battery-electric trucks to customers across the United States.

Funding & Deal Highlights:
  
Squire Technologies, the premier barbershop management and point of sale system software, announces their Series B led by CRV, with participation from Tiger Global, the San Francisco 49ers organization, the former CEO and Chairman of Infor, Charles Phillips, and existing investors Trinity Ventures, 645 Ventures, Comcast Ventures' Catalyst Fund and Y Combinator. This Series B includes $27M in equity financing and $7M in debt financing, bringing the total raised to $46.2M for the tech startup. This investment round aims to assist the growing company as it adds financial services to its already functional digital platform.

M1 Finance has created a no-fee investing app that offers users an automated brokerage, portfolio lines of credit, and digital banking. In February, the startup reached $1B in assets being managed on its platform. So far in 2020, M1 Finance has added more than $650M in customer deposits.

NS8, a fraud prevention platform designed to protect online transactions, raises $123M in a round of funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation from AXA Venture Partners. Founded out of Las Vegas in 2016, NS8 meshes automation, behavioral analytics, device fingerprinting, and real-time scoring to identify fraudulent activity and establish the authenticity of a transaction. 

Flatfile, a startup developing a platform that analyzes spreadsheets using AI and machine learning, announces that it has raised $7.6M in equity financing. The funding coincides with the launch of Concierge, Flatfile’s newest product focused on data on-boarding for large enterprises, which launched in private preview earlier this year.

Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on improving patients' lives with its novel approach to cancer immunotherapy, announces that it has completed an $85M Series C financing. Checkmate plans to use the proceeds from the financing to support the continued clinical development of CMP-001 in anti-PD-1 refractory melanoma as well as to pursue studies in additional indications, such as front-line melanoma and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Journera, the real-time data exchange platform for creating more seamless travel, announces its Series B funding round as the company ramps up travel recovery efforts through targeted data and a "whole journey" view of the customer. Journera is a technology company that provides a secure, real-time data exchange for creating more seamless travel journeys. Through its platform, Journera creates a complete view of the traveler's journey in real-time, enabling travel-related companies to create better travel experiences that drive increased loyalty and direct engagement with customers.

Vendr raises $4M from David Sacks’s Craft Ventures to reduce SaaS bills. 

RapidSOS raises $21M in funding. The company works with some 4,700 public safety agencies alongside a network of other companies, including wearable tech makers, connected home companies, carriers and others to provide those agencies with instant data about people in critical situations making emergency calls for help — some 650,000 calls per day in the U.S. alone.

Kyruus, the leader in provider search and scheduling solutions for health systems, announces that it has obtained $30M in new funding from Francisco Partners, a leading global technology-focused private equity firm with extensive experience in healthcare IT. The new financing comes on the heels of a $42M Series D round Kyruus closed late last year. At a time when the Kyruus platform has been critical to the ability for healthcare organizations to facilitate patient access during the COVID-19 pandemic, the additional funding will propel the company’s plans to expand its platform, broaden its footprint with health systems, and expand to new market segments.

QGenda, LLC, the leading provider of SaaS-based workforce management software to the healthcare industry, announces a significant new equity investment from ICONIQ Capital, a privately-held investment firm. With the investment, ICONIQ Capital will partner with Francisco Partners, who will retain a majority stake. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Cyemptive Technologies, Inc., a provider of pre-emptive cybersecurity products and technology and winner of the Department of Homeland Security’s national competition for most innovative border security-related solution in the market, announces its continued business expansion with its acquisition of Interpreting Technology, an award-winning IT services and support company headquartered in the Pacific Northwest.

CINC Systems, the largest provider of SaaS solutions for the community association industry, announces that it has received a growth investment from Spectrum Equity, bolstered its executive team and launched an investment fund to support its customers’ growth.

RepairSmith announces the acquisition of More Automotive Group, a leading provider of mobile repair and maintenance services for fleets, property managers, and corporate office parks in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento.

Arlington, Virginia-based healthcare provider Advantia Health landed a $45M investment from BlueMountain Capital Management.

Since last week, PrivCo has added:
304,220 Profiles Updates | 175 M&A Deals125 Funding Activities
Latest Revenues, EV, EBITDA, and Valuations
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