The Swedish electric car startup Uniti has returned with news after a long break in communication. Accordingly, the pandemic has severely affected the company. Bridging financing that was promised for the end of November has also been delayed - which is currently endangering the company's existence.


As Uniti CEO Lewis Horne announced on LinkedIn, the company was struggling with the effects of the pandemic and had to reduce its team to an absolute minimum. There are negotiations with a strategic investor from China who should provide bridging funding by November 30th. However, since this has been delayed, Uniti now has less than a week to raise EUR 500,000. Otherwise you have to file for bankruptcy.

According to Horne, the company was hit by the pandemic at an early stage after making important advances in its prototypes. An engineering partner had ordered body parts from a company in Wuhan, an alternative procurement was not possible for budget reasons. The first prototypes in the production state could therefore not be built by Q2 2020.

“We courted many interested parties; some went well and some failed miserably, ”writes Horne of the effort. “Ultimately, this process resulted in us completing a production candidate that we presented to our shareholders at the beginning of 2021.” According to the founder, the fact that this prototype was not presented to the public was due to the desire of a “strategically valuable partner” who “not us only bring in the capital we need, but also solve our production challenges ”.

Since May, the company has been concentrating on this unnamed investor and, for its part, has adhered to an "exclusivity agreement" - that is, no further funds have been collected from other investors. "We have completed a lengthy due diligence process and are now quite advanced with our post-merger integration, although the transaction is not yet completed," writes Horne.

Only: The first tranche promised for the end of November has not yet arrived - according to Horne because of "restrictions on the outflow of capital from China". "All the investor can do for us is to waive the exclusivity clause so that we can raise capital from other sources and gain enough time to close the deal," Horne continued. “My hope was that today I would let the public know that we finally have good news. Instead, we struggle to continue without these funds. "

Horne makes a specific offer to possible investors: Uniti needs 675,000 euros as bridge financing, four million euros for the first demo vehicles and 60 million euros for a Uniti factory in China - as well as “further funds for operations and marketing from the investor's internal budget”. The aim is to go public within 12 months.

The Uniti One is a special small electric car: the driver sits in the middle, behind it there are two seats for passengers. Depending on the size of the battery, the 50 kW small car should travel 150 or 300 kilometers. A price was already known for the basic model: In Great Britain the One was to be sold at prices starting at 17,760 euros.