Argo Corp With CEO, Praveen Arichandran

Stockhouse

The Market Online speaks with Argo Corp CEO, Praveen Arichandran as Argo is a TOP GAINER OF THE WEEK - ARGO CORP.

Transcript

00:00Welcome to The Watchlist. I'm Lindsay Melchick. Well, financial results season is in full bloom

00:10and Argo Corporation is right in the heart of it as they release their fiscal year 2024

00:14financial results. Now, here with us to give us some of those key takeaways is CEO Praveen

00:19Arachandran. Hello, Praveen. It's great to see you today.

00:23Thank you for having me.

00:24So, you know, why don't we actually start with, give us your elevator pitch on the company.

00:28So Argo has built the world's first vertically integrated on-demand public transit system for

00:36cities. So for people, what that means is that with the touch of a button, they can request a

00:40ride near their door for a standard public transit fare. For cities, it means that they can quickly

00:46and cost-effectively electrify and augment their transit infrastructure with on-demand service.

00:51And for investors, it means the opportunity to own a company in its early innings that has category

00:56defining technology, clear customer traction with municipal contracts, and a global market

01:01in the trillions of dollars for transportation infrastructure in the coming years.

01:05Sounds exciting already. Let's flip over to those financial results reports that you just

01:11released. With ArgoCorp emerging as a top gainer just last week, how much of that momentum can be

01:17attributed to investor optimism around its smart city autonomous transit initiatives, you know,

01:23like Argo City and Argo School? It's a great question. So we're an exceptionally young company.

01:29Our founding team took over this publicly traded entity not even a year ago. So we founded Argo

01:34last June. And within a few short months, we've made incredible progress. So we built our smart

01:40routing technology that includes our vehicle hardware, software, mobile application, and turnkey

01:46operational support. In September, we deployed it to a series of private schools. By December,

01:52we won our first municipal contract with the town of Bradford, West Willenberry to replace

01:57their entire fixed route bus system with our smart routing solution that includes our Argo X1 vehicles,

02:03hardware, software, and operations. Last month, we went live in DWG, and the technology is already

02:09having a transformational impact there. We had provincial leadership actually come to celebrate the

02:14launch of the technology partnership. Two weeks ago, we announced our second municipality, which

02:20was a $10.9 million, 12-month pilot agreement with the city of Brampton, which Brampton Transit is

02:27actually one of the fastest growing and most robust public transit systems in the country.

02:31So investors are really seeing all of these things happening over a really short period of time,

02:35and they're seeing category-defining technology that's live and operational, major municipalities

02:40signing up. The size of these small kind of pilot agreements being into the eight figures,

02:46and a global market for transportation infrastructure into the trillions of dollars

02:50in the coming years, and they're putting the pieces together and seeing that this team can really

02:53execute against it. Well, you guys have all just hit the ground running. What a year so far.

03:00So as the company then continues to develop its autonoma transit technology and really actually

03:05expands its footprint in smart city infrastructure. I mean, how might its long-term vision reshape

03:10urban transportation? So we see a future that we're building where public transit is more convenient

03:19than driving a car, but costs a standard transit fare. And we're building that future today. You know,

03:26I had the privilege of being on Facebook's original international growth team 14 years ago,

03:30and I was also Tesla's first head of growth globally almost a decade ago now. And our leadership

03:36and technical team is primarily early executives and engineers from what are now the largest consumer

03:42technology and mobility companies of the world. And the fundamentals of category-defining companies

03:47in their early days are really always the product and the technology. And beyond the technology already

03:53being live and operational and having a transformational impact, if you go to our website and look at the

03:59experience of the team, building legendary long-term products and companies is what we love and what

04:05we know how to do best. And we're really laser-focused on building into this long-term vision. So, you know,

04:11as much as the recent news and momentum is gaining some attention in the markets, we haven't really

04:16even scratched the surface of getting started here and what we're trying to build.

04:20Just the tip of the iceberg, I am sure. This is a great takeaway chat. Thank you again for joining us.

04:26Thank you so much for having me. Again, that was Praveen Arachandran, CEO of Argo Corp. Their website

04:31is rideargo.com. And for all of your market news, stay right here on stockhouse.com. I'm Lindsay

04:38Melchick. We'll see you next time.

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