Proterra
has authorized shares to raise $75 million, a new round of funding that
would push the electric bus maker’s valuation past $1 billion,
TechCrunch has learned.
The company authorized the sale of
10,857,762 shares at a price of $6.91 in a Series 8 round, according to a
securities filing that was obtained by the Prime Unicorn Index, a
company that tracks the performance of private U.S. companies, and
reviewed by TechCrunch. If all of the shares are issued, the company’s
total valuation would be $1.04 billion, pushing it into “unicorn” territory, according to Prime Unicorn Index.
Proterra declined to comment.
Efforts to raise capital come as the company explores an IPO,
according to a report last month by Reuters that said Proterra had
hired underwriters from Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan
Stanley.
Prior to this August 2 filing, Proterra had raised a
total of $551.77 million in funding from investors that include G2VP,
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Constellation Ventures, Mitsui
& Co. as well as BMW i Ventures, Edison Energy, the Federal
Transportation Administration, General Motors’s venture arm and Tao
Capital Partners.
Proterra
produces electric buses for municipal, federal and commercial transit
agencies; it has a line of electric buses, hundreds of which have been
sold, that can travel 350 miles on a single charge. The Burlingame,
Calif. company, which has a number of former Tesla employees in
leadership positions, including CEO Ryan Popple, has since diversified
its business.
Proterra rolled out in April a $200 million credit facility backed by Japanese investment giant Mitsui & Co. to scale up a battery leasing program aimed at lowering the barrier of entry of buying an electric bus.
And
just this month, the company announced it has added a new business line
called Proterra Powered that will sell its vehicle battery systems,
powertrain technology and charging infrastructure to commercial truck
and manufacturers of heavy-duty vehicles like garbage trucks.
This new business line stems from its previous relationships with companies like Van Hool and Daimler . Proterra announced last year it was working with Daimler to
electrify the company’s Thomas Built Buses division, which makes a line
of school buses. That relationship comes with some financial backing
and an agreement to share technologies.
Daimler co-led a $155
million funding along with Tao Capital Partner. Proterra is lending its
battery and drive train expertise; Daimler will show Proterra how to
scale its manufacturing business even further.
The partnership has
already been fruitful. Thomas Built Buses received certifications from
the California Air Resources Board and the Hybrid and Zero-Emission
Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project for an electric bus, known as
the Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley, which uses Proterra technology. Electric
school bus production for demonstration and innovation vehicles begins
in 2019 and commercial production begins in 2020.
Source. Techcrunch News, Kirsten Korosec, August 8, 2019
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