Proterra, which is set to go public through a SPAC merger with ArcLight Clean Transition Corp. (ACTC), is emerging as a leader in the electric bus industry, which could be a massive market opportunity in the next decade or so. In this Fool Live video clip, recorded on April 28, Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel, CFP, explains why Proterra could be such an interesting investment to put on your radar.
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Anand Chokkavelu: Next up is a much smaller company. We've got Matt with Proterra via SPAC ArcLight Clean Transition Corp., ACTC, market capital of $1.6 billion -- you have to use the decimal because it's only $1.6 billion. Sales are estimated to be $193 million in 2020. That would put it at about 8x sales. We can call it this one Chamath Palihapitiya one, because he was in the PIPE for this one.
Matt Frankel: He led the PIPE. He was the leader of it. I think this is one of our more anonymous picks. None of us ranked this one below four. I really liked Proterra, not just because it's a Chamath company; they are the leader in electric buses. I love companies that do one thing really, really well. They certainly do that. They have a 50% share of the North American market against some pretty deep-pocketed competitors. They focus on governmental systems, school systems, things like that. They have a much more steady revenue stream, less competition and pricing concerns.
They have tons of cash right now. For a company with a $1.6 billion market cap, they're getting about $600 million in a PIPE deal or between the PIPE and the SPAC. They're going to have deep pockets to innovate. It's a huge market opportunity that the commercial vehicle market is $260 billion in size. That revenue number that Anand just mentioned is about 0.1% of it. If they get to 1% market share, they'll be 10X-ing their business.
I love Proterra, I will keep it pretty tight, because I want to get to some of the questions that Anand had for the end of the show because, I'm curious to see the other guys' answers quite frankly. But Proterra, I love the electric bus market. I think within a decade, every public-transportation bus in America will be electric.
