Auto Software Firm LeddarTech Reaches Deal to Go Public Via SPAC

Kwaku Gyasi and Crystal Tse, Bloomberg News

Derek Aberle in 2015. Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- LeddarTech Inc., an automotive software company, is going public through a merger with a blank-check company led by Qualcomm Inc.’s former president.

The deal with Prospector Capital Corp. will give LeddarTech a pro forma equity value of $348 million, according to a statement on Tuesday that confirmed a Bloomberg News report.

The transaction will provide LeddarTech with $23 million from the blank-check company, assuming investors don’t redeem their shares, and $43 million from a private investment in public equity, or PIPE.

Proceeds from the deal will be used to fund the expansion of the LeddarTech’s product line and the commercialization of its first embedded software solutions.

Prospector is a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, led by Derek Aberle, former president at Qualcomm. The blank-check firm raised $325 million in an initial public offering in 2021 with the intention of merging with a technology company. Though Prospector had extended it’s deadline for a merger this past January, investors have redeemed much of the shares.

“During my tenure at Qualcomm, I experienced the tremendous value that can be created when innovative companies with foundational technologies disrupt industries,” Aberle said in Tuesday’s statement. “We believe LeddarTech has the potential to do just that.”

LeddarTech develops and provides sensor fusion and perception software technology for autonomous vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems, or ADAS. Headquartered in Quebec City, the firm also has major R&D centers in Montreal, Toronto and Tel Aviv.

“Given the type of customers and the type of business we’re handling here, going public is certainly an important step to the company to build its credibility and transparency, as we deal with large customers that won’t have certainty about supply,” Charles Boulanger, LeddarTech’s chief executive officer, said in an interview.

The company explored private financing and a traditional IPO before deciding that going public via a blank-check company was a more “structured” and “predictable” route, Boulanger said.

(Updates with Charles Boulanger quotes in final two paragraphs.)