Electric boat company IPO raises over $27 million
Vision Marine Technologies, formerly the Canadian Electric Boat Company, today announced the closing of its Initial Public Offering (IPO) of 2,760,000 common shares at a price of US$10.00 per share, which includes 360,000 shares sold upon full exercise of the underwriter’s option to purchase additional common shares.
The gross proceeds from the offering, including the exercise of the over-allotment option, were US$27,600,000, before deducting underwriting discounts, commissions and offering expenses.
The electric boat company was founded in 2012 in Quebec, Canada and has built and offered a variety of electric boats since then, ranging from the classic cruising style Fantail to the Volt 180 and Phoenix 290. They are also involved with a number of electric boat rental companies.
The name Vision Marine Technologies reflects their plan to move beyond ‘just boats. and be a technology company at the forefront of the electric marine propulsion market in every aspect.
Vision Marine developing new electric powertrain
The Volt 180 hit a speed of 30mph (48kmh / 26 kts) to set a record for the electric boat competition in the famed Lake of the Ozarks Shootout races in August last year. The Phoenix, a 19 foot, ten passenger open boat, was introduced at the Miami Boat Show back in February (remember February !) at the 2020 Miami Boat Show.
Both of the high speed boats have been powered by Torqeedo Deep Blue outboards, and the company also uses motors from Piktronik, ePropulsion, E-tech and Minn-Kota – but in the prospectus for the IPO Vision Marine outlined plans for its own electric outboard powertrain, the E-motion:
that combines an advanced battery pack, inverter, and high efficiency motor with proprietary union assembly between the transmission and the electric motor design and extensive control software. Our E-Motion technologies used in this powertrain system are designed to improve the efficiency of the outboard powertrain and, as a result, increase range and performance
The first of the E-motion electric outboard systems will have a peak power of 135kW / 180 HP and continuous power of 9kW / 120 HP. The motor itself will weigh in at 188 kg / 413 lbs and will be powered by lithium batteries. It appears that the powertrains will be assembled using components from different companies, with the motors purchased from UQM Technologies and Dana TM4.
The business plan is to market the powertrains to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) rather than the public, and they have received Letters Of Intent from OEMs for 186 powertrains in the first year of production growing to 504 powertrains for the year ended August 31, 2024.
Latest electric boat company to raise significant money
This IPO is just the latest example of the growing interest in electric boating from investors and the public at large. Most other companies have gone the route of crowdfunding campaigns to raise capital, but some of those campaigns have allowed the public to acquire equity.
OceanVolt
The Finnish company, one of the pioneers and great innovators of electric boat motors, used the Invesdor crowdfunding platform to blow past its original €600k target to raise €2M in May of 2019. Then this past September another equity crowdfunding was well above target on its opening day and ended up closing with investments of € 2.25M.
GreenStar Marine
Sweden’s GreenStar Marine, another motor company that focuses largely on the sailing market, went over its target by 230% with 314 investors contributing €480k for 4.66% of the company’s shares.
DeepSpeed
Italy’s DeepSpeed has a revolutionary electric hydrojet motor, the promise of which has driven the company’s capitalization from € 2.1M in 2019 to € 13.5M currently. That includes a crowdfunder that reached its goal within 48 hours and netted €520K in just 10 days.
X Shore
The Swedish electric boat company is another that participated in the crowdfunding market, raising €1.5M in October of 2019. That was followed by a private investment of €5M (US$ 5.7M) from a group led by veterinary hospital executive Peter Dahlberg.
Congratulations to Vision Marine Technologies. The electric boat market in 2012 was nowhere near what it is now and Executives Alexandre Mongeon, Patrick Bobby and Robert Ghetti have been instrumental in building awareness of the benefits of electric boats.
The company is now in an excellent position to reap the rewards of their work as the market evolves and grows. As noted in their prospectus, it is anticipated that sales of electric boats and motors will almost triple in the next few years, from about US$4.5 billion in 2018 to US$12.32 billion in 2027.
