Austin Electric Vehicle Company AYRO Merges With DropCar
AYRO, a maker of light electric vehicles, will merge with New York fleet logistics firm DropCar, the companies announced in a joint press release.
Based in Round Rock, AYRO was known as AEV Technologies, short for Austin Electric Vehicles, until a rebrand in June this year.
The merger is contingent on approval by shareholders of DropCar, which trades publicly on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker symbol DCAR.
Following the merger, the combined company will operate as AYRO and trade on the Nasdaq.
DropCar is a New York startup that launched in 2015 and runs a cloud platform and integrated mobile apps to help in logistics and fleet management.
Rod Keller, Ayro’s CEO, said in a letter about the merger, “In the next phase of our business, we want to expand to Europe, Middle East and Africa and increase the number of EV solutions in our product portfolio. For this reason we chose to pursue a public offering…”
“One unique difference at AYRO is we focus on building electric vehicles for specific applications where customers don’t need all the features of a traditional automobile. Because we start with understanding the needs of the application, we often deliver up to a 50% reduction in operating expense while reducing CO2 emissions by 67%.”
AYRO’s clients include Club Car, a subsidiary of Ingersoll-Rand and a major supplier of maintenance utility vehicles to universities.
Keller noted, “Universities, distribution centers, warehouses, last-mile delivery and large business campuses are just a few of the applications for AYRO vehicles. In American universities alone it is believed there are more than 500,000 maintenance vehicles being transitioned from gas to electric over the next five years.”
Under the merger agreement, current DropCar shareholders will own approximately 20% of the combined company and current AYRO shareholders will own approximately 80%. The merger is expected to close in the first half of 2020, according to the news release.
DropCar Chairman Joshua Silverman will serve as Chairman of the Board of the combined company while AYRO CEO Rod Keller will take on the role of CEO of the combined company. The headquarters will be in Austin.
A seven-member board will include three members designated by DropCar, three members designated by AYRO and one member designated by a leading investor.
Originally published at https://www.honestaustin.com on December 20, 2019.
