Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has several high-tech exits to his name. Now it turns out that his brother Asher Bennett could also post a substantial exit, in the millions of dollars. UK-based electric trucks company Tevva Motors, which Asher Bennett, a former Israel Navy submarine officer, founded in 2013, is examining an IPO on Nasdaq, according to sources in Israel. Similar companies in the electric truck field have held offerings in the past few months at valuations in the billions of dollars.
The company focuses on converting light and medium-weight trucks weighing 7-14 tonnes to electricity, with an option for a compact range extender, a generator for independent charging of the truck's batteries, which gives it a relatively long range. Without the range extender, the range of the trucks that the company has developed is about 150 kilometers. The company is also developing an electric propulsion system for heavy trucks with an overall weight of 19 tonnes, to be launched next year.
The company has developed several special technologies for its vehicles, including a control and management system for battery packs, remote control via the cloud, and its own propulsion system. It first made the news in 2016 when it presented a range of trucks manufactured by Chinese company JAC that it had converted from diesel to electricity. In 2019, the company signed a contract with international delivery company UPS, which equipped itself with a fleet of light delivery vehicles incorporating Tevva's technology.
In March this year, the company announced a $12.5 million financing round, at which time Bennett said, " From a commercial standpoint, delivery trucks are a $100 billion global market and demand for a cost effective, zero emission solution is growing by the day. With this raise, we will be better positioned to meet that demand." According to the Crunchbase website, Tevva has raised $26 million to date.
Electric trucks are a hot item for investors, party thanks to Tesla's announcement of its intention to develop an electric powered heavy truck.
Among other companies in this field are US-based Rivian, which is supported by Amazon and is developing electric delivery vehicles, and is expected to hold an IPO at a valuation in the tens of billions of dollars; British startup Arrival, which has developed an electric platform for delivery vehicles and minibuses, and is currently valued at $11 billion; and US-based Nikola, which is developing heavy electric trucks, and has a market cap on Nasdaq of $6.91 billion.
Hylion Holdings, which converts heavy trucks to electricity and went public last year through a SPAC merger, has a market cap of $2.12 billion. There is also a large number of Chinese companies in electric trucks that in recent months have raised hundreds of millions of dollars at unicorn valuations. Many of these companies have as yet no sales.
In March this year, Tevva reported to the US Securities and Exchange Commission an offering of shares as a privately-held company to accredited investors, under rule 506(c). According to the filing, the company sold shares to the tune of $5.5 million in February.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on June 16, 2021
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2021