Proterra, the Tesla of electric buses, closes in on $1 billion valuation

Proterra has authorized shares to raise $75 million, with a fresh form of funding that would push the electric bus maker’s valuation past $1 billion, TechCrunch has learned.

The company authorized the selling of 10,857,762 stocks at a price of $6.91 in a Series 8 around, according to a securities filing that has been acquired from the Prime Unicorn Index, a company that monitors the operation of personal U.S. businesses, and reviewed by TechCrunch. If each the stocks are issued, the firm ’s total valuation would be $1.04 billion, then pushing it into “unicorn” territory, based on Prime Unicorn Index.

Proterra declined to comment.

Efforts to increase capital come since the provider explores an IPO, according to a report last month by Reuters that said Proterra had hired underwriters by Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.

Ahead of this August 2 filing, Proterra had increased a total of 551.77 million in funding from investors that have G2VP, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Constellation Ventures, Mitsui & Co. in addition to BMW I Ventures, Edison Energy, the Federal Transportation Administration, General Motors’s venture arm along with Tao Capital Partners.

Proterra produces electric buses for municipal, federal and industrial transit services; it has a lineup of electric buses, hundreds of which have been marketed, that could travel 350 miles on a single charge. The Burlingame, Calif. firm, which has a variety of former Tesla employees in leadership positions, such as CEO Ryan Popple, has since diversified its organization enterprise.

Proterra rolled out in April that a $200 million bank endorsed by Japanese funding giant Mitsui & Co. to scale up a battery leasing plan geared toward reducing the barrier of entry of buying an electric bus.

And just this past year, the company announced that it has added a new business line called Proterra Powered that will sell its vehicle battery powered systems, powertrain technology and charging infrastructure to commercial truck and manufacturers of heavy-duty vehicles like trucks.

This new small business line stems from its previous relationships with companies like Van Hool and Daimler . Proterra declared last year that it had been operating together with Daimler to electrify the organization ’s Thomas Built Buses branch, which creates a line of parks. That connection includes some financial backing and an agreement to discuss technologies.

Daimler co-led a $155 million funding along with Tao Capital Partner. Proterra is giving its own battery and drive train expertise; Daimler will reveal Proterra the way to scale its manufacturing business further.

The venture has been fruitful. Thomas Built Buses received certifications from the California Air Resources Board and the Hybrid Vehicle and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project for an electric bus, also known as the Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley, which uses Proterra technology. Electric college bus manufacturing for demonstration and innovation vehicles starts in 2019 and industrial production starts in 2020.