Another robot company on public markets: Faraday Future sells itself to itself, sort of
Faraday sells itself to Faraday
Faraday Future has found a buyer for its robotics business, at a price of about $200 million.
The buyer is Faraday Future. Mostly.
FF EAI Robotics Ecosystem, which trades on Nasdaq as FFR and was called AIxCrypto Holdings until two weeks ago, signed definitive agreements on Monday to acquire Faraday Future's entire robotics operation in an all-stock deal. Faraday Future is already FFR's majority stockholder. When the deal closes, which both companies expect by the end of October, Faraday Future will own about 65.7% of FFR. Management and employees will hold another 18.2%, and new PIPE investors 5.5%.
Everyone else gets about 10.7%.
That's roughly 13 million freely tradable shares, worth a little under $20 million at Tuesday's close of $1.45.
Less an acquisition than a spin-out
So this is less an acquisition than a spin-out with a stock ticker already attached. Faraday Future gets a separately listed robotics company it continues to control and consolidate into its own financials, and FFR gets a business to replace the crypto treasury strategy it's now winding down.
FFR is issuing shares to Faraday Future at $2.246 each, a 50% premium to FFR's $1.50 close on Monday. That's simply the price both sides agreed to use for the share issuance; a higher price means fewer new shares and less dilution.
FFR's own side of the ledger, valued at about $60 million, includes its Nasdaq listing, cash, notes receivable, a robot-sharing platform called RoboShare, and certain investments, "including investments in FFAI."
(Part of what gives the buyer its value, in other words, is stock in the seller.)
Apparently special committees of disinterested independent directors at both companies approved the deal, and FFR's committee got a fairness opinion from Advanture Capital Solutions. The filing's own risk factors are refreshingly blunt: the counterparty is FFR's controlling stockholder, certain managers serve both companies, and there are "conflicts of interest inherent in the transaction."
FFR's governance will be modeled on the arrangement between FF Global Partners and Faraday Future, which keeps the founding team, led by YT Jia, firmly in charge.
"The transaction will give the robotics business a dedicated public-company platform alongside RoboShare's capabilities," says FFR CEO Jerry Wang. "We're confident in the opportunity to build on customer deliveries and expand real-world applications creating a foundation to advance commercialization across products, deployments, data and services."
So what is FFR actually getting?
Faraday Future only got into robots this year, unveiling its first models at NADA in February. Since then the lineup has grown fast. When Faraday Future launched five new robots last month, global CEO YT Jia told me the world needs far more robot shapes than car shapes. "So think of covering like 10,000 tasks, how many form [factors] do we need?" he said.
The catalog now runs to 24 products across three form factors: humanoids, wheeled-legged quadrupeds, and the Faber mobile manipulator. I also interviewed Chris Chen, co-CEO of FF's robotics unit, on TechFirst about its push into robots for schools.
The company says it had sold and shipped 817 "EAI Devices" by the end of September, with gross margin above 30% in the second quarter and cumulative revenue of about $1.52 million.
What is Faraday selling now?
This is where the arithmetic gets interesting.
By the end of June, according to Faraday Future's weekly investor updates, cumulative shipments were about 242 units. Spread $1.52 million across 242 robots and you get roughly $6,300 per unit, and that assumes every dollar came from hardware. The full-size Futurist humanoid lists at $89,900 and the Navi quadruped is $1,990, so Faraday is probably selling mostly Navi units.
The company has some very ambitious goals.
FFAI management forecasts 2,001 units sold in 2026, which means shipping about 1,184 robots in the fourth quarter alone. That's nearly 400 a month. Revenue is projected at about $7 million this year and $45 million in revenue on 7,400 units for next year. And from 2026 through 2030, Faraday is projecting a cumulative $1.98 billion in revenue, more than 130,000 robots, and gross margin climbing to 54%.
That's roughly 1,300X in 5 years.
FFR expects to need up to $150 million in cumulative financing before reaching positive operating cash flow, which it targets for no later than Q3 2028. So far it has raised up to $10 million in a PIPE priced at market.
For context, Figure raised money at a $39 billion valuation last year. Against that, a $200 million price tag for a company that is actually delivering hardware isn't absurd on its face. Still, there's a steep path to tread to achieve even part of these projections.
The real test will come after this deal closes and FFR starts reporting robotics results on their own. Separate financials will show unit mix, pricing, margins, and cash burn ... all of which will be very interesting, and will offer better insight into the company's possible futures.
Sources
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I tell stories with data and build startups. I've raised angel and VC funds, led software companies and startups, and chronicled the rise of the mobile economy. Currently I write for Forbes, host several podcasts, and am starting up HumanoidMegaHub. I was TUNE's mobile economist and Singular's VP of Insights, built the research team at VentureBeat, and managed teams creating software for partners like Intel and Disney. In past lives I built websites, e-learning platforms, and mobile apps, and, a long time ago, was named to Folio's top 100 of the media industry's "most innovative entrepreneurs and market shaker-uppers.”