Quebec-based automotive software provider LeddarTech will enter NASDAQ later this year when CEO Charles Boulanger steps down.
Listing will occur through a merger with Prospector Capital, a special purpose acquisition company whose shares are already available on NASDAQ.
LeddarTech’s stock will trade under the symbol LDTC. Closing of the transaction is expected in the last three months of the year.
The transaction announced Tuesday gives an approximate value of 350 million US dollars to LeddarTech and should bring up to 66 million US dollars in cash to the company whose head office is located on Hamel Boulevard in Quebec City.
The money raised by LeddarTech should be used in particular to finance the marketing of software solutions and to expand the product offering.
CEO of LeddarTech for 10 years, Charles Boulanger will step down once the stock market jump is formalized. The current president and chief operating officer, Frantz Saintellemy, will succeed him.
Charles Boulanger, however, plans to remain with the company as a special advisor and member of the board of directors of LeddarTech.
“We are one of the few public investment opportunities in an automotive software company,” Charles Boulanger said Tuesday during a conference call to discuss the announcement.
“We serve the needs of a large and fast-growing market segment,” he says.
“We believe we are solving one of the biggest challenges facing the automotive industry today. Regulators are now requiring automakers to fill human gaps with automated driver assistance. To meet these requirements, it is necessary to have a more precise and more efficient model in terms of costs”, added Frantz Saintellemy, for his part, during the conference call on Tuesday.
Prospector had been created with the aim of completing a transaction with a company offering advanced and highly differentiated solutions for the technology sector.
Prospector is led by former Qualcomm chairman Derek Aberle and chaired by former Qualcomm board vice chairman Steve Altman.
“During my tenure at Qualcomm, I have seen the tremendous value that can be created when innovative companies with foundational technologies disrupt industries. We believe LeddarTech has the potential to achieve this,” says Derek Aberle.
LeddarTech had been considering going public for a while. In an interview with La Presse two years ago, Charles Boulanger indicated that the company was preparing accordingly and that the project would materialize if the markets held up.
He pointed out that the development of the LeddarTech platform was very expensive and that the company needed financing to achieve its ambitions.
Charles Boulanger predicted that eventually people would no longer fly for routes like Quebec-Toronto or Boston-Washington and that there would be cars adapted for sleeping and for working.
He argued that LeddarTech had a unique business model with its technology to merge the data collected by the various sensors of a vehicle.
“Our ambition is to become the Android of self-perception in a way,” he said.
Founded in 2007, LeddarTech develops software perception solutions for advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving systems. In addition to the head office in Quebec, LeddarTech also has facilities in Montreal, Toronto, Germany, and Israel.
LeddarTech has made two acquisitions since 2020.
LeddarTech en bref
Headquarters: Quebec
Year of foundation: 2007
CEO: Charles Boulanger
Activities: detection and driver assistance software for the automotive sector
