Smart Car Firm ECARX Plans $3.8B SPAC

Smart car tech startup ECARX said it is going public through a special purpose acquisition company merger that values the firm at $3.8 billion.

According to a Thursday (May 26) press release, the deal with COVA Acquisition Corp (COVA.O) includes an investment of $45 million from investment mobility tech company Geely Holding Group, lidar sensor manufacturer Luminar Technologies Inc and automotive company Lotus Technology.

Additional funding comes from $300 million COVA raised during its initial public offering (IPO) in February 2021.

ECARX has operations in China and Europe and is focused on technology used in smart vehicles, high-definition maps and car chips. The company was founded in 2017 by Ziyu Shen, its chief executive officer, and Li Shufu, chairman of Geely.

Read more: Mobileye IPO Paves Way for Wall Street Bets on Autonomous Vehicles

The past few months have seen a number of car tech companies make moves toward going public. In March, Intel Corp has said it planned to take its self-driving car division Mobileye public in the middle of 2022.

Intel acquired Mobileye in 2017 for roughly $15 billion. The company has estimated that the automotive silicon market will hit $115 billion by the end of the decade.

See also: Car-Sharing Platform Getaround Going Public in SPAC Deal

And earlier this month, digital car-sharing marketplace Getaround announced plans to go public in its own SPAC deal, a $1.2 billion merger with InterPrivate II Acquisition Corp.

Getaround Connect lets consumers quickly reserve vehicles and retrieve them without filling out paperwork, waiting in line, or physically exchanging keys. In addition, it allows hosts to scale and manage large fleets in multiple geographic regions.