Autonomous trucking startup Kodiak Robotics to go public via SPAC

Summary

Self-driving truck startup Kodiak Robotics plans to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company Ares Acquisition Corporation II. The transaction values Kodiak, which has raised around $243 million to date, at about $2.5 billion pre-money. New and existing Kodiak institutional investors, like Soros Fund Management, ARK Investments, and Ares, have funded or committed over $110 million in financing to support the transaction, as well as about $551 million of cash held in trust. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2025. Going public via SPAC is an interesting move at a time when the self-driving truck space has experienced some major hits, including high-profile players like Embark and TuSimple shutting down. SPACs have also lost much of their luster from the heyday of 2021, especially for capital-intensive companies like AV and EV startups. Kodiak does have something going for it, at least. It is revenue-generating, albeit that revenue is likely minimal. Kodiak, which says it has driven 2.6 million miles autonomously, eventually wants to commercialize long-haul trucking operations. In the short-term, the company has pursued off-road autonomy as a quicker path to market. In January, Kodiak delivered its first two autonomous trucks to customer Atlas Energy Solutions, marking its first commercial launch. Atlas has committed to buying an initial order of 100 trucks to aid its operations delivering frac sand in West Texas’s remote Permian Basin. That bit of revenue validates Kodiak’s technology more than pre-revenue startups, which have made up the bulk of SPAC mergers over the past few years, and it could open up the door to PIPE investments. That said, the path to profitability is a long one, and the capital needs of autonomy are massive. TechCrunch reached out to Kodiak to learn more about how long their current runway is but did not receive an immediate response. Kodiak’s public market debut comes during a turbulent period in the publ...