Self-driving trucks startup Einride plans to go public via a SPAC

Einride said Wednesday it plans to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, just six weeks after the Swedish electric and autonomous truck startup raised $100 million from investors. The SPAC merger with Legato Merger Corp. values Einride at $1.8 billion in pre-money equity, according to the companies.

The deal is expected to generate about $219 million in gross proceeds, a figure that doesn’t take into account any redemption of Legato’s public shares. The company is also seeking up to $100 million in private investment in public equity (PIPE) capital.

The merger is expected to close in the first half of 2026, with Einride making its debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

Einride was founded in 2016 with an ambition to transform the freight industry, first with electric trucks, then with autonomous electric autonomous pods — vehicles that lack a steering wheel or pedals designed for self-driving. The company, which hired Roozbeh Charli as its new CEO earlier this year, has been trying to scale three business lines: electric big rigs, autonomous pod-like trucks that navigate fixed routes, and planning software designed for shippers.

Einride has had some success in expanding beyond Sweden. It operates a fleet of 200 heavy-duty electric trucks in Europe, North America, and the UAE, for companies like Heineken, PepsiCo, Carlsberg Sweden, and DP World. The company has made some inroads with its autonomous pod-like trucks with customers including Apotea in Sweden and GE Appliances in the United States.

Einride, which also has a U.S. headquarters in Austin, Texas, revealed in its announcement that it has a current annual recurring revenue (ARR) run rate of about $45 million and a total contracted base of $65 million ARR from signed customer contracts.

The company’s $100 million raise, which was announced in October, was meant to help the company scale with its customer base and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous freight technology, Charli said at the time.

Einride previously raised $500 million in 2022 in a Series C round of equity and debt. The equity-based $200 million portion came from backers including Northzone, EQT Ventures, Temasek, Swedish pension fund AMF, Polar Structure, and Norrsken VC. It also secured $300 million in debt funding led by Barclays Europe. The $100 million raise in October included existing investor EQT Ventures and quantum computing company IonQ.

Einride joins other autonomous vehicle companies that have pursued SPAC mergers in recent years to secure additional funding.

Aurora, which launched a commercial self-driving trucks operation (with a human observer on board), went public via a SPAC merger valued at $13 billion in 2021. Self-driving trucks startup Kodiak AI took the SPAC road to the public market earlier this year.