• Electric-vehicle upstart Rivian just closed a $2.5 billion round of funding, the company announced on Friday.
  • The investment was led by T. Rowe Price, which also led a $1.3 billion funding round in December.
  • Since last year, Rivian has raised well over $5 billion and is backed by Amazon, Ford, and Cox Automotive, among others.
  • It plans to release its first vehicles, the R1T pickup and R1S SUV, in 2021.
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Electric-vehicle startup Rivian, which is among the most-anticipated challengers to Tesla and has already secured investments from the likes of Ford and Amazon, has completed a new $2.5 billion round of funding, the company said on Friday.

The financing comes from a group of investors led by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. that includes Soros Management Fund LLC, Baron Capital Group, Coatue, and Fidelity Management and Research Company. Amazon and BlackRock, which already back the EV startup, also participated in the round.

Including this latest batch of funding, Rivian has racked up roughly $5.35 billion from investors since 2019. Last year’s major investments include a $700 million round led by Amazon, $500 million from Ford, and $350 million from Cox Automotive. In December, Rivian raised $1.3 billion through another round led by T. Rowe Price.

The multibillion-dollar institutional investment may indicate considerable long-term faith in the company, but RJ Scaringe, Rivian’s founder and CEO, told CNBC on Friday that the company currently has no plans for an IPO.

"For us, we're so focused on launching products," he said in an interview with the outlet. "Priorities one, two, and three are launch the products. We're not planning or thinking about exit events, liquidity events at this point. We have access to private capital, which allows us to focus on execution."

Rivian was set to launch its first two consumer vehicles, the R1T pickup truck and R1S SUV, this year, but postponed their release to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Even considering the delayed release date, Rivian will potentially be among the first finishers in the race to bring an electric pickup truck to market, beating out both Ford and Tesla.

Next year, the EV maker also plans to begin rolling out electric delivery vans for Amazon. The e-commerce giant has already ordered 100,000 of them, Rivian said.

The company will produce the R1T and R1S, along with the delivery vans, at a former Mitsubishi Motors plant in Normal, Illinois, which it is renovating to the tune of $750 million.