Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has been sending around a picture of celebrity Leonardo DiCaprio driving the first Fisker Karma extended-range electric car; I first saw it on TMZ. But much more quietly, the company is in the process of raising yet another $ 200 million, according to Dan Primack at Fortune , and Primack says the round is being raised at a valuation of $ 2.2 billion.
The valuation seems somewhat reasonable given Tesla has a market cap of $ 2.5 billion. However, Tesla has produced and sold over 1,500 Roadster electric cars, has brick and mortar stores and is close to producing its second car: the electric sedan, the Model S. Primack says the $ 2.2 billion valuation is up from a valuation of $ 1.5 billion for its last round.
Fisker raised $ 100 million earlier this year, on top of the $ 1 billion in equity, loans and grants it has already raised. So if the company closes that $ 200 million, it will have raised about $ 1.3 billion in equity, loans and grants. Primack says the round is being marketed as a “pre-IPO” round, so Fisker will then be raising even more on the public market (if the IPO window opens back up).
Primack says Advanced Equities is Fisker’s largest shareholder with 14.61 percent, and Kleiner Perkins holds 12.61 percent. Kleiner Partner Ray Lane explained to me in an interview in July that one of his reasons for investing in Fisker was to “get the valuation high enough so you don’t get crushed on dilution.” He told me during that interview that he thought Fisker had the potential to be valued at something like Zynga, which recently was valued around $ 11 billion.
Image courtesy of Fisker and Getty.
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