The Fisker brand recently entered a new chapter as a publicly traded company. As a result, the company was able to raise over $1 billion in funding, and inch closer toward bringing its new wave of electric vehicles to the world.
Fisker is led by automobile designer and entrepreneur Henrik Fisker, who has designed a handful of luxury vehicles, including the BMW Z8, Aston Martin V8 Vantage and even the Benetti Fisker 50 superyacht. Fisker (the man) founded his own company Fisker Automotive in 2007, which was most famous for creating the Fisker Karma, a sleek electric luxury sports car owned by the likes of Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio. The company ran into several obstacles and had to declare bankruptcy in 2013. But just a few years later in 2016, Henrik Fisker revived the Fisker brand and launched Fisker Inc.
With Fisker Inc., Henrik Fisker believes he was able to learn from his mistakes, go back to the drawing board and try some new things. One new approach was how Fisker intended to raise money. Getting a car company off the ground is a very capital intensive project, which meant that the company needed financial backing from a lot of investors. In 2019, Fisker came up with the idea of raising this money by listing as a public company through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), an alternative to an initial public offering (IPO).
Fisker, who raised money through private investments before, told Built In that the process of going public through a SPAC meant that the company could get access to more funding faster than it would have via traditional means. He told Built In that, in just two to three months, the company was able to get access to over $1 billion, which was about how much money the company needed to get its first new prototype — the Fisker Ocean — into production.
“It was the perfect situation coming together. We would have enough capital to go all the way to starting production for the Fisker Ocean, and be able to do it quickly,” Fisker Inc. Chairman and CEO Henrik Fisker told Built In. “Becoming a public company was very important for us because it allowed us to be transparent with investors, and allowed us to start negotiating deals with the large groups we’d need in order to make our business plan successful.”
Fisker’s rebirth as a brand is tied to the upcoming release of its new car, the Fisker Ocean, which it markets as the “world’s most sustainable vehicle.” On top being all-electric, the Fisker Ocean has several secondary sustainable features built in. Its seats are made from a vegan leather-like material. Its carpeting comes from recycled plastics like used plastic water bottles and abandoned fishing nets. It utilizes the discarded rubber waste from the tire manufacturing process. And it even has a solar panel on the roof that can provide another 1,000 miles per year.
But despite all these features, Fisker wanted to make sure the Ocean was affordable for average consumers. While the original Fisker Karma was a luxury vehicle that cost over $100,000 to buy, the Fisker Ocean starts at $37,499 — making it accessible to a much larger audience. And since the Fisker Ocean is an all-electric vehicle, buyers can take advantage of several federal and statewide rebates and credits that incentivize buying EVs.
The company plans to officially unveil the Fisker Ocean at the Los Angeles Auto Show in May of 2021. Currently, customers can reserve the Fisker Ocean through the Fisker Inc. website, with production planned to start in 2022. Fisker has received over 9,000 paid reservations for the Ocean so far.
Now, with its first new car in the pipeline and over $1 billion in its bank account, the company is ready to invest in its employees. Fisker Inc. recently moved into its new Manhattan Beach headquarters, where it hosted its bell-ringing party on Monday in celebration of going public. Although the office isn’t fully moved-in yet due to COVID-19 restrictions, it will be the eventual home for the rapidly growing company.
Expanding its LA-based team is important to Fisker, because, as he puts it, LA played a big role in figuring out the ethos of the Fisker brand.
“LA is also the inspiration for who we are as a company and how we design our vehicles. There’s two very important aspects of this: one is the LA lifestyle, and the other is sustainability,” Fisker told Built In. “The LA lifestyle is about having fun and being laid back. And that is really what our vehicle tries to transmit. With our car’s California Mode, you can roll down all the windows and fit a surfboard through the rear window. And then there’s the sustainability aspect of using things like recycled materials. These two really fundamental inspirations are the reasons for us being in LA.”
He continued: “Our logo is even inspired by me sitting on the beach in LA and watching the Californian sunset over the Pacific Ocean.”
Fisker Inc. employs a little over 100 people right now, but Henrik Fisker tells Built In that the company hires about five to 10 employees every week. He estimates that the company will hire another 100 employees going into 2021, effectively doubling the size of the company. Fisker Inc. is hiring for dozens of roles, including openings on its LA-based engineering, manufacturing and business teams.
