Published August 17, 2012
By Jeff Cobb
As Fisker Automotive strengthens its executive team, distribution network, and has sold somewhere over 2,000 Karmas, it is seeking at least $150 million more in private funding to get its Atlantic to market., and help position the company for the long term.
The company
just hired former Chevy Volt line director Tony Posawatz as CEO, and a couple other key executives, and it will need the industry veterans if it is to make it against challenges.
On the public relations front, the company has had a couple fires, a recall, a couple service updates, loss of the balance of a $529 million federal low interest loan.
It is this last hit to its balance sheet that has Fisker looking for more venture capital, and thus far it has garnered over $1 billion, with over $400 million raised in the past 12 months.
"We need money on our balance sheet" said Ray Lane, a Fisker director and a managing partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to Reuters this week. "And we need money to fund the development of the next car."
That it will need more to build the upper mid-priced Atlantic is plain, and the $150 million is needed just to break even, said Lane, while opting to not divulge how much in total is needed.
Lane said also the company is positioning itself for an initial public offering or sale to a strategic investor once the breakeven point is reached, possibly in late 2013.
Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher declined to comment, but has previously said Fisker adamantly intends to do what it set out to do: build an American brand and globally operating green car company, and the loss of government funds has not stopped it from finding resources elsewhere thus far.
New York Times
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