For several years, companies that label themselves or have been labeled as a Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) rival or have been called Tesla rivals have gone public via SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) merger. The list includes names such as Lucid, Fisker, Canoo and others.
A new SPAC deal announced Wednesday is bringing another Tesla rival public, but this time it’s in the humanoid robot sector.
• What’s the outlook for TSLA shares?
Agility Robotics Going Public
Taking on the robotics sector — a key focus of Tesla — Agility Robotics is going public via merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI (NASDAQ:CCXI). The deal is expected to create the only U.S. public pure-play humanoid company with proven and active commercial deployments.
Investors and partners for Agility include NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN), SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Foxconn, Schaeffler, Abico and Playground Global.
The merger values the company at a pre-money equity value of $2.5 billion.
Agility plans to use proceeds from the merger to fulfill existing customer orders, scale production, expand commercial deployments and invest in the company.
A future publicly traded company, Agility competes with humanoid robotic companies like Figure, Apptronik and Tesla.
Tesla is looking to robots and autonomous vehicles for future growth, with analysts and investors paying a premium to current financials for the opportunity in areas like humanoids.
A pure play operator, Agility could see more attention from investors as it goes public, especially with the backing of Nvidia and Amazon.
What’s Next for Agility Robotics
Enterprise customers with Agility Robotics in operation include Toyota, Schaeffler and GXO. Amazon uses Agility’s robots in warehouses.
The company’s Digit v5 aims to be the world’s first AI-enabled safe humanoid robot. Over $300 million in multi-year contracts have been signed for Digit v5 to date.
“Agility is at the forefront of a new era where safety-first, AI-powered technology can reliably work alongside people to bridge labor shortages, increase productivity and strengthen the resilience of our supply chains,” Agility CEO Peggy Johnson said. “We believe humanoids are at a meaningful inflection point in commercial adoption.”
The company will trade under the ticker AGLT after the SPAC merger is closed.
CCXI Stock Price Action
Churchill Capital Corp XI stock was up 15.07% to $11.99 on Wednesday. Shares hit a new 52-week high of $13.49 during the intraday trading session.
Photo: courtesy Agility
