SPAC rumor mill churns over autonomous truck software developer Plus
Startup ‘open to all kinds’ of capital raising but mum on blank-check merger
0 66 3 minutes read A Bloomberg report has autonomous trucking software maker Plus close to a SPAC merger with Hennessy Capital. (Photo: Plus)
Self-driving truck software startup Plus is reportedly in talks to merge with the same investor group that brought public electric vehicle startup Canoo Inc. (NASDAQ: GOEV), school bus maker Blue Bird Corp. (NASDAQ: BLBD) and flatbed logistics specialist Daseke Inc. (NASDAQ: DSKE).
Rumors of the Cupertino, California-based startup aligning with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) have circulated for months. Bloomberg reported Friday that Plus is in talks with Hennessy Capital Investment Corp. V (NASDAQ: HCIC) in a deal that could be announced as soon as this week.
Higher Pay for the Long Haul
Part of the truck driver turnover problem is getting “paid by the mile but regulated by the hour.”
April 20, 2021
By Pat Pape
This is the second of a two-part NACS Daily series on the truck driver shortage in the U.S.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. The biggest obstacle to attracting new truck drivers may be pay. While Walmart truckers all of them employees of the retail giant make a highly publicized salary of about $90,000 a year, the average annual wage for a tractor-trailer truck driver was $45,570 as of May 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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SAN FRANCISCO, April 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/
Embark Trucks, Inc., a leading developer of self-driving trucks, today announced a landmark expansion of its senior leadership team to fuel the company s rapid growth. Citigroup Managing Director Richard Hawwa has been tapped to serve as Chief Financial Officer and former Orrick Partner and GE Executive Siddhartha Sid Venkatesan will join as Chief Legal Officer.
Richard Hawwa, Chief Financial Officer, Embark Trucks Inc.
Siddhartha “Sid” Venkatesan, Chief Legal Officer, Embark Trucks Inc.
Richard and Sid bring decades of combined industry expertise and will work to strategically expand Embark s financial and legal functions as the company begins commercializing self-driving trucks. Both Richard and Sid will be the first to serve in their roles.
Embark Expands Senior Leadership Team to Commercialize Self-Driving Trucks streetinsider.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from streetinsider.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Robot Truck Startup TuSimple Raises $1 Billion In First Self-Driving Startup IPO
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TuSimple
TuSimple, a San Diego-based developer of robotic truck technology, raised $1 billion from listing shares on Nasdaq and is the first self-driving tech company to go public in the U.S. And bucking the trend of going public via a SPAC merger, it did so with a conventional IPO that turned its two cofounders into billionaires.
Ahead of the start of trading TuSimple said it sold about 27 million shares priced at $40 each, with an additional 6.8 million sold by an unnamed investor. Funds raised will be invested to boost R&D efforts, expand the company’s freight-hauling network and get robotic trucks developed with Volkswagen’s Traton SE, an investor, ready for sale by 2024, says cofounder and CTO Xiaodi Hou, the key developer of TuSimple’s AI-enabled technology.