Fisker plugs into $3m of extra funding for Karma launch

US green car startup Fisker Automotive has reportedly raised an additional $3m (£2.1m) in funding as it seeks to put the finishing touches to its Karma plug-in electric sports car ahead of its launch later this year.

The latest funding, which was led by Qatar Investment Authority and return investor Kleiner Perkins, is in addition to the $65m the company secured last September and takes to more than $100m the amount raised since the firm's launch in 2007.

Fisker spokesman Russell Datz told clean tech blog Earth2tech that the fresh funding would go towards "a partial stake in a battery company to secure exclusive supply of battery technology." He added that the deal represented "a strategic investment between Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Fisker Automotive in a battery supplier, which will be named shortly".

The move follows the announcement last year of a deal with General Motors to use its four-cylinder engine in the Karma and appears to suggest that the company remains on track to launch the car before the end of the year.

In addition to the deals with engine and battery suppliers, the company announced last November that it had signed a deal with Valmet Automotive of Finland to assemble 1,200 vehicles a month when the company begins full-scale production of the car in mid-2010.

The latest investment comes as Fisker waits on a response from the Department of Energy to several applications for low-interest federal loans that it plans to use to develop a mainstream plug-in hybrid that will be made available at a lower price than the $87,900 the Karma is expected to cost.