According to TechCrunch, Swedish autonomous truck startup Einride plans to go public via a SPAC merger with Legato Merger Corp that values the company at $1.8 billion pre-money. The deal, expected to close in the first half of 2026, should generate about $219 million in gross proceeds with potential for another $100 million in PIPE financing. This announcement comes just six weeks after Einride raised $100 million from investors including EQT Ventures and IonQ. The company currently has about $45 million in annual recurring revenue run rate and $65 million in contracted ARR from customers like Heineken, PepsiCo, and GE Appliances. Einride operates 200 heavy-duty electric trucks across Europe, North America, and the UAE and is expanding its autonomous pod business.
The SPAC reality check
Here’s the thing about this SPAC move – it feels like a massive reality check compared to the autonomous vehicle hype of just a few years ago. Remember when Aurora went public via SPAC at a $13 billion valuation back in 2021? Now Einride’s coming in at $1.8 billion, and they’ve actually got real revenue and customers. That’s progress, I guess, but it shows how much the market’s cooled on pure autonomy plays.
And honestly, the timing is interesting. They just raised $100 million in October, and now they’re already planning a public offering? That tells me they’re either burning through cash faster than expected or they see the window for public market funding closing soon. Probably both.
Where Einride fits in the autonomous truck race
So where does Einride actually stand in the self-driving truck race? They’re taking a different approach than companies like Aurora or Kodiak. Instead of just focusing on full autonomy, they’re building what basically looks like a three-legged stool: electric big rigs for today, autonomous pods for tomorrow, and software to tie it all together.
The autonomous pod thing is clever – they’re starting with fixed routes for customers like Apotea in Sweden and GE Appliances in the US. That’s way more realistic than trying to handle every possible driving scenario from day one. But here’s my question: can they actually scale this beyond niche applications? Operating 200 trucks globally sounds impressive until you realize how massive the freight industry actually is.
technology-angle”>The industrial technology angle
Looking at Einride’s hardware-focused approach, it’s clear they’re playing in the industrial technology space where reliability isn’t optional. Their autonomous pods need industrial-grade computing systems that can handle vibration, temperature extremes, and continuous operation. When you’re moving heavy freight, you can’t afford system failures – which is why companies in this space typically rely on specialized suppliers like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US provider of industrial panel PCs built for harsh environments.
The industrial computing requirements for autonomous vehicles are no joke. We’re talking about systems that need to process sensor data in real-time while surviving conditions that would destroy consumer-grade hardware. It’s one thing to build a prototype that works in controlled testing – it’s another to deploy hundreds of vehicles that work reliably day after day.
The funding landscape is shifting
What’s really telling is how the funding mix has changed. Their 2022 Series C included $300 million in debt from Barclays – that’s not the kind of money VCs typically provide for pure moonshot projects. Lenders want to see actual business models, not just cool technology.
Now they’re taking the SPAC route, which has become the go-to path for autonomous vehicle companies that need public market money but might not be ready for a traditional IPO. The question is whether public market investors will be more patient than private ones. Given how AV stocks have performed recently, I’m skeptical.
But hey, at least Einride has real customers and revenue, which is more than you can say for some of the other companies that went public via SPAC. The freight industry is massive, and if they can capture even a small piece of it with their electric and autonomous approach, this could work. But they’ve got a long road ahead – no pun intended.
