Self-driving truck firm Einride surges over 70% in Nasdaq debut

By Marie Mannes and Zaheer Kachwala

STOCKHOLM, June 10 (Reuters) - Shares of Swedish electric and autonomous trucking firm Einride soared more than 74% in their Nasdaq debut on Wednesday after its merger with SPAC firm Legato.

Einride's listing reflects renewed interest in SPAC mergers as an alternative to traditional IPOs, after a lull following the pandemic-era boom that took EV startups such as Polestar and Nikola public.

Here are more details:

• The company plans to use part of the proceeds to grow its business with existing customers in North America and Europe, CEO Roozbeh Charli told Reuters.

• The merger initially valued Einride at about $1.8 billion, but that was later revised down to about $1.35 billion following additional financing.

• Einride - whose customers include Lidl, PostNord, Oatly and Carlsberg - currently has about 200 electric trucks.

• However, only a handful of those vehicles are fully autonomous, though that number is expected to rise to around 20 by the end of the year. The bulk of its business is manual-driven electric trucks running on Einride's driver platform.

• Despite growing investor interest in autonomous and electric vehicles, several firms including Lordstown Motors and Proterra have gone bankrupt due to strong competition, operational challenges, and high costs that eroded cash reserves.

• Einride's investors include Swedish EQT and Ericsson, with Charli stating that all current shareholders were rolling their holdings into the new structure.

• "I think the recipe, like the combination of hardware, software, and operations is pretty unique (to Einride)," said Ted Persson, partner at EQT.

• SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, mergers enable private companies to go public by merging with listed firms set up solely to find an acquisition target. Charli said the SPAC deal was chosen as the "quickest and most efficient" route to public markets.

(Reporting by Marie Mannes and Zaheer Kachwala; Editing by Diti Pujara)