Autonomous trucking firm Embark Trucks Inc. began trading on the Nasdaq exchange today after completing its merger with a special-purpose acquisition company.

The company, which is trading under the ticker symbol “EMBK,” is valued at $5 billion and raised more than $600 million in proceeds from the sale. Early investors redeemed nearly 30 million shares, however, cutting its proceeds by around $300 million.

As a result, the company will be left with about $314 million from what remains of the trust created by its SPAC sponsor Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp II, plus $200 million raised from private investment in public equity.

Embark’s stock fell 12% on the first day of trading.

Founded in 2016 by its 26-year-old Chief Executive Alex Rodrigues and its equally youthful Chief Technology Officer Brandon Moak, Embark has created software that enables autonomous trucking. The software enables Embark to convert regular trucks into semi-autonomous fleets of vehicles.

The trucks are not fully autonomous and still require human drivers. Rather, what Embark does is it automates the “long-haul” highway stretches between cities, leaving the more challenging task of navigating through city streets to the human experts.

As with other autonomous vehicles, Embark’s trucks are fitted with various cameras, lidar and other sensors to “see” the world around them. The software is powered by artificial intelligence models that make sense of the data from these sensors and control the truck.

The software-based approach gives Embark the advantage of not needing to build its own trucks from scratch. The company says its tech can improve fuel efficiency by up to 10%, reduce delivery times by up to 40% and increase revenue per truck by up to 300%.

In an interview with CNBC, Rodrigues said the ongoing trucker shortage in the U.S., combined with congestion at its major ports and the rise of e-commerce, have created a big opportunity for autonomous truck fleets.

“People are really understanding the need here and there is a huge amount of excitement about the potential to revolutionize the way logistics works,” Rodrigues said. “We are really at an inflection point now, where it’s really starting to affect everyday people and you know when people can’t get their Christmas present, the need for a solution becomes a lot more urgent.”

Analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. agreed with Rodrigues’ assessment, saying it’s clear that vehicles of all shapes and sizes will eventually become autonomous. However, while the road forward for people’s cars seems likely to be entirely self-driven, the solution for trucks is less obvious, he said.

“For starters trucks are more expensive, they operate longer and they generally stay on the books for longer,” Mueller told SiliconANGLE. “So retrofitting older trucks with a self-driving car kit is an interesting option during this transitional period and that is what Embark Trucks is aiming at. The result should be a more human way of driving for a lot of professional truck drivers, taking away the longest and most monotonous stints of their job.”

Embark has some solid business partners in the shape of Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, which brews Budweiser beer, as well as transportation and delivery firms such as Werner Enterprises Inc., Ryder System Inc. and DHL International GmbH. The company further claims to have 14,200 nonbinding reservations for its Embark Universal Interface, which is the self-driving software and sensor package that can be incorporated into existing trucks.

The company’s early investors include Knight-Swift Transportation Holdings Inc., which is said to be the largest trucking firm in the U.S., as well as venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global.

Embark is one of a number of autonomous vehicle firms to go public this year, following in the footsteps of TuSimple Inc., which held its initial public offering in April, and Aurora Innovation Inc., which completed a SPAC merger earlier this month.

Jut this week, the autonomous electric delivery vehicle manufacturer Rivian Automotive Inc. went public via an initial public offering, raising more than $12 billion. Rivian, which is backed by Amazon.com Inc. and Ford Motor Co., saw its stock jump 43% on its first day of trading.

Photo: Embark Trucks