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00:00Roosberg, thank you very much indeed for your time.
00:02Thank you for having me.
00:02Tell us what Enride does, what the proposition is,
00:04and what kind of gaps you're trying to fill in the market.
00:07Absolutely.
00:07So Enride is at the core of freight technology company
00:10that helps our customers, who are some of the world's largest shippers,
00:15to sort of transition their fleets from where they are today
00:18with diesel-manual, manual-based transportation,
00:20into electric and autonomous.
00:22And we do that through the deployment of our platform model,
00:25which sort of sits in the middle and orchestrates
00:27all the different parts and the different technologies required
00:30to drive that transition and help them throughout that journey
00:36and deploy our sort of electric manual trucks
00:39for the first step in terms of electrification
00:41and our autonomous vehicles for the automation of their transportation.
00:45And it's those kind of two central lines, isn't it?
00:47So you've got the freight, you've got the trucks,
00:48where you're supplying the software, you're supplying the autonomy
00:52and the electrification, and then you have the so-called pods,
00:56which are, in fact, fully autonomous.
00:59Exactly.
00:59So our e-bots that are autonomous vehicles,
01:02they're fully autonomous vehicles built from day one for autonomous
01:05with sort of redundancy steering, braking and power supply systems.
01:09No driver in the vehicle from day one.
01:11We've elected to take the safety driver out of the vehicle from day one.
01:15And that's how we see the future of transportation, right?
01:17So we sort of chose to go to the end state from day one,
01:20showing this is how the end state of transportation is going to look.
01:23It's going to look that way because the unit economics of the market
01:26is going to drive the transition into electric,
01:29the combination of electric and autonomous.
01:31And that's where we sort of started off basically with our autonomous technology.
01:36And then we're helping our customers to gradually scale into that.
01:39And you've chosen to go and offer the full stack,
01:41the hardware, the software, the autonomy and the electrification.
01:45Exactly, exactly.
01:45So we provide the end-to-end solution to our customers.
01:49We then, of course, have partners in the back end
01:50to help us supply that to our customers.
01:53And we focus on the core parts of the technology.
01:56So the autonomous technology, the sort of the freight operating system, for example.
02:00And then we have partners for different parts of providing that stack.
02:03But from a customer's perspective,
02:04we're helping them throughout that entire transition.
02:07And you've got, correct me if I'm wrong,
02:08but you've got, what, 200, more than 200 trucks
02:10currently on the road around the world.
02:12You operate in seven different countries.
02:13You've got some major clients and customers.
02:15What is demand and the order book looking like right now?
02:19No, so we've had a good demand for, you know,
02:21we've spent the last five years, I would say,
02:23really executing on our sales strategy,
02:25which is a sort of a land and expand type of strategy.
02:28Getting with the large transport buyers,
02:29show how you're going to help them transition their fleet
02:33and their transportation into electric and autonomous.
02:36And the benefits of that for them,
02:38which is ultimately taking down their transportation costs.
02:42And we've been very sort of successful in doing that.
02:45As you mentioned, we've got about 200 trucks already deployed today.
02:48We've got 27 customers across seven different countries.
02:52We have a joint business plan pooled,
02:54which is sort of a potential ARR of about $800 million
02:56in those contracts with customers,
02:59which are sort of scaling plans that we set together with them.
03:02This is how we're going to transition your fleet.
03:04And this is how we're going to scale together.
03:06And that's what we're sort of executing towards now.
03:08What's the biggest market right now in terms of growth potential?
03:11So I think we see, you know,
03:13expanding our operations from Dubai all the way to the US through Europe.
03:17The US is our second largest market.
03:19We started off in Sweden and then sort of expanded into the US
03:21and then going southward into the continental European markets.
03:27And I think we see, you know, good growth potential both in the US with strong momentum,
03:31with the customers and contracts that we have there.
03:34We also see the GCC countries coming up, you know,
03:37as a very interesting market for us,
03:39specifically on the autonomous side and Europe and its demand, right?
03:44And for sort of, you know, taking the, making the transition to electric,
03:49not because of anything else, but the cost, the benefits that that can provide.
03:54We're seeing sort of good demand across all of those markets.
03:57What is the biggest challenge in terms of scaling a business like this?
04:01Is it the technology? Is it the talent? Is it regulation? Is it funding?
04:06I think it's, I would say all of the above,
04:08but I think there's a combination of the industrial scale of it, right?
04:12You're going after a 4.x trillion dollar market a year, right?
04:17It's about a north of a trillion dollar in Europe and the US alone.
04:21And you're sort of trying to transition that into a two new technologies
04:26with both electric and autonomous.
04:28So I would say the industrial scale of getting the ecosystem in place,
04:31which includes regulation, includes a lot of charging infrastructure,
04:35includes the operating planning software, for example, the hardware platform.
04:39So it's the combination of those things that is necessary
04:43in order to be able to drive this transition.
04:45But that also, of course, creates complexities that we can take on for our customers
04:50and help them so they don't have to take on that complexity.
04:53Do you see a world in which all freight is automated?
04:57And if so, when?
04:58So I think, you know, I think the introduction of autonomous within freight
05:02is going to be, it's a gradual process.
05:04It's not a switch in on and off technology.
05:06And you're going to have, you know, you're going to see gradual deployments
05:09such as that we started off, right, with certain types of high asset utilization lanes
05:14going back and forth between production and distribution centers.
05:17And you're going to see that scale into highway use cases, et cetera.
05:20And, you know, autonomous taking a bigger and bigger portion of the sort of overall transportation market.
05:28So, you know, will we get to 100%?
05:30That's probably far out in the, you know, you're going to have a subset of use cases,
05:34which makes sense to do as manual or for a long period to come, right?
05:39So I think it's going to be a gradual transition, but ultimately the goal is, of course,
05:43to automate as much as possible because that's going to be, you know,
05:46that's where the unit economics of the market is going to drive the market.
05:49Big questions right now in terms of AI disruption, AI displacement of jobs.
05:53Do you face pushback?
05:55Do you face political pressure in terms of the displacement of jobs in this sector?
05:59Do you feel that less in the U.S. than you might do in Europe?
06:01No, so I would say, you know, the way that we've thought about our autonomous technology,
06:05I think is a combination, you're always going to need to have a human in the loop, right,
06:10for edge cases, for interaction between at loading base, for example, or other places.
06:14So I think when you think about, you know, a lot of times we think about automating freight,
06:18you only think about the autonomous technology, but automating freight is about so much more
06:23that comes into setting up the entire operational workflow and operational flow.
06:27And so if you look at how we're deploying autonomous technology today,
06:31where our vehicles are fully autonomous and are driving autonomous when they're driving,
06:35they're being surveillanced by a human in the loop sitting at a remote station,
06:40you know, far away from vehicle in an office setting, supervising that transportation,
06:45helping the vehicle take tactical decisions, for example, in edge cases
06:51or interact with humans as required.
06:54So I think it's, you know, once again, that gradual process and actually transitioning jobs
06:59into a different set of jobs is, you know, how we think about this transition to autonomous.
07:07You know this better than most, being the previous, the CFO of the business,
07:11now the CEO, of course, but this is a capex-heavy business.
07:14There's the trucks, there are the chargers, the software, the autonomy piece as well.
07:20How much more funding do you think you need before you can stand on your own revenues?
07:23So I think, you know, if you look at all of those pieces, yes,
07:28those pieces are required from an ecosystem perspective to drive that transition, right?
07:32And it's about, I think a lot of what we've done successfully so far
07:35and we continue to do is finding the right pools of capital
07:38to come in at the right place in that value chain, right?
07:42So we've been charging infrastructure together with our infrastructure partners
07:45that want to have exposure to sort of long-term contracts with, you know, infrastructure assets.
07:51So we're sort of, we're not investing our capital into the build-out of charging infrastructure, for example.
07:57Similarly, when it comes to vehicle financing, we partner with partners that have,
08:01that require that or want that return profile in terms of owning assets under long-term contracts.
08:07So I think this transition to electric internal, not only for us, but for the industry as a whole,
08:13is as much about finding those financing structures in order to, you know,
08:18to drive that transition as an ecosystem.
08:20And I think we've been able to do that successfully.
08:23That's, of course, going to be a key focus for us going forward as well,
08:25of being able to continue building on those sort of financing structures.
08:32Right now, for us as a business, it's a lot about, you know, as I mentioned earlier,
08:36we have that $800 million of potential AR in the contracts.
08:40It's about investing into and growing into those contracts.
08:44And also, of course, continued development on the autonomous side and increasing the level of automation for our customers.
08:53So we'll continue investing into growth and have an underlying business of profitable contracts that we're deploying our technology.
09:00So that's $800 million ARR of potential annual recurring revenue in those contracts.
09:06What is your target for that in, say, the next 12 to 24 months?
09:09So without going too much into, you know, given that we're moving into also, you know,
09:14becoming a public listed company without saying too much around the focus.
09:17But we're expecting a strong growth from our customer base going over the next 12 to 18 months.
09:22And we'll continue delivering on that, you know, growing into those $800 million.
09:26Give us an update then on that public listing then.
09:28So you're expecting to go public via a SPAC on the New York Stock Exchange later this year.
09:34What is the timing?
09:34What is the valuation you're looking for?
09:36How much are you looking to raise?
09:37And why list via that route?
09:39Yeah, so we announced in November, we announced the SPAC transaction together with Legado.
09:45It was a decision we took earlier in the year as we were, you know, giving up to move towards
09:50public, U.S. public markets.
09:53We looked at the different alternatives.
09:54We chose the SPAC because it was a more quick and efficient way for us to get to public markets.
09:59We interacted with the Legado team.
10:01They've done this numerous times before.
10:03And, you know, liked the experience of taking companies like us into a public context.
10:11So we worked with them and announced the transaction on the 12th of November.
10:16We are working towards a closing of the transaction during H1 of this year.
10:21So we're in that sort of, you know, interactions together.
10:23And looking to raise?
10:25We're looking to raise a pipe of at least $100 million and sort of close the transaction in H1 of
10:31this year.
10:31Where does, taking a step back, where does Europe stand when it comes to autonomy in the freight sector?
10:39Is Europe leading?
10:41And if so, in what parts of the space is Europe leading?
10:44And where is it challenged?
10:46Where is it falling behind?
10:47Yeah.
10:48No, I think, I mean, if you look at what's happening on the autonomous side in general, right, freight and
10:52robot taxes,
10:54I think what you've seen over the past 18, 24 months is the U.S. taking a clear leadership position
10:59in terms of the regulatory environment, right?
11:01You see, you know, mass sort of at-scale rollouts of robot taxes in U.S. cities, regulatory frameworks leaning
11:09inwards,
11:10especially on the state's sort of state legislative side.
11:14So I think you're seeing that, but that's also creating a pull effect, I would say, with Europe, right?
11:19We're working across a number of European countries with the regulators in terms of autonomous regulation and deployment.
11:25And we're seeing the same inward-leaning sort of attitude in a European context as well.
11:31So I think Europe is sort of, you know, seeing the opportunity that exists within, you know, freight, but also,
11:39of course, robot taxes, but specifically on the freight side.
11:44So I think, you know, we'll see continuing success in Europe sort of catching up to the U.S. in
11:49terms of that regulatory environment.
11:51And if you look at this sort of ecosystem in Europe, you know, you have a sort of generally an
11:59environment that has historically been pretty good for the initial stages of technology development, right?
12:04And, you know, you've got the universities, you've got, you know, a bunch of different factors that has made Europe
12:10actually in clusters pretty good at deep tech technology development.
12:14And when it comes to the scaling of that technology, you'll also see that a lot of times, you know,
12:19European countries will continue scaling in the European context, but we will also always, or relatively quickly, start looking over
12:25the pond into the U.S.
12:28And I'd say you see the same thing on autonomous freight today.
12:31A lot of technologies coming out of the U.S., but also European players that are such as ourselves, right,
12:36that have started in Europe, have a foothold in Europe, but also looking into early on in our development.
12:43What does that tell us, and what does your listing, your planned listing in the U.S., tell us about
12:47the shortage of growth capital, particularly for deep tech in Europe?
12:51Yeah, so I think, you know, Europe has a challenge when it comes to that scaling of technologies, right?
12:57When you pass the initial stages of funding, when you start looking at larger funding amounts required specifically for, you
13:05know, deep tech technology development that has a sort of working towards commercialization,
13:12I think you definitely see that the U.S. is, you know, has a leadership when it comes to the
13:18funding of those types of projects.
13:20And, you know, I think there is, that's part of our choice as well, right, to list in a U
13:26.S. context.
13:27The U.S. capital markets are just more well-versed in this context to provide the capital required for us
13:34and for other sort of similar technology companies.
13:36Do you think, honestly, in five years' time, is Europe going to be leading when it comes to autonomy, or
13:42are we going to be buying in the software and the hardware from either the U.S. or China, possibly?
13:47I think it's going to be a combination.
13:49I hate to give you the boring answer, but I think it's going to be a combination because I think,
13:52you know, this is not going to be a winner-takes-all type of technology development.
13:57You're going to have a number of players that succeed within their respective fields of autonomy, and the technology translates
14:05over time into different segments as well.
14:07So I think you're going to see a number of winners, both in the European context and the U.S.
14:12context.
14:13And in terms of this kind of technology becoming mainstream across logistics, is the bottleneck, is it the technology, is
14:21it regulations, is it tech, or is it unit economics?
14:26Do the unit economics of this kind of business make sense long-term?
14:29So the unit economics long-term makes a lot of sense, especially within freight, where you have, you know, being
14:37able to have a highly, planning out the transportation, so you have a highly utilized asset, where, you know, running
14:44at a lower operational cost than the transportation is today.
14:48I think the unit economics makes perfect sense for this transition, or even more so in freight than it would
14:54on the robotaxis side.
14:56So I think that it's about the question of scaling into that, right, getting into those parts when it comes
15:01to both scaling the hardware platforms that are required, but also all the ancillary systems that are required, right?
15:07And I think that when thinking about automation of freight, you know, you often just think about the autonomous technology
15:15that's required to sort of move the vehicle back and forth between the transportation that you're doing.
15:20But you also have, you know, this fits into an overall operational flow, right?
15:25And there's a touch points between, you know, vehicle and other infrastructure and sort of that you need to also
15:32take into consideration more so when you think about automation of freight, right?
15:36And I'll give you an example.
15:38We did a trial when it came to border crossing between, so we did an automated, drove one of our
15:45vehicles across the Sweden and Norway border.
15:49And part of that is, of course, having a vehicle that can do that, having a regulatory framework that can
15:55interact with two different regulators on each side of that border.
15:59But another part is also, of course, being able to actually cross the border and communicate with the border crossing,
16:05for example, in an automated way.
16:07So a lot of those things also need to be solved as you think about scaling the autonomy within freight.
16:13If you had your hands on the levers of power in Brussels, what are the first things you would do
16:20to help support a business like yours, to help support European deep tech, trying to scale on a global level?
16:26So, I mean, looking at us specifically, where the regulatory environment for autonomous is such a big part, I would
16:32say, of course, my key focus would be creating a, you know, a sort of a EU spanning regulatory framework
16:40for the deployment of autonomous technologies.
16:43Right. So currently, similar to the US, right, we're working with each of the national states on the national state
16:49level and interacting with the regulators to get the regulatory problems to, to, to, to, to, to sort of, to
16:56draw a lot of technology.
16:58So, from a selfish perspective, that's what I would focus on, right?
17:00A unified framework.
17:02A unified framework for the EU when it comes to the rollout of autonomous vehicles.
17:06How far away are we from that?
17:07I think we're a few years off from that. We're seeing developments in that direction, right?
17:11We're definitely seeing a will from the regulator on the EU level and on the countries, you know, state levels.
17:16I think we're a few years away from having that, you know, that in place, but I would, if there's
17:21anything I could accelerate, that's probably where I would, would put my focus from a, from a purely sort of,
17:26you know, a selfish perspective.
17:28I think more generally thinking about, you know, what, what, what sort of, what should be done in terms of
17:34promoting deep tech development in general.
17:36I think, you know, getting, you know, getting a more unified capital market structure, you know, and, and, and having
17:42one capital markets, maybe even thinking about, you know, a, a public market that can be more unified across, across
17:49the different countries to create additional liquidity and, and sort of adapt in investor interest in, in, in the public
17:56markets.
17:56I think just, you know, the, we, we, we are in many ways still at 27 or 20 X fragmented
18:03markets, right?
18:04So working with unifying regulation generally, not just within the thoughts, but generally across those to simplify, you know, expansion
18:12and simplify the scaling of, of technology across the, in the national borders.
18:16I think that would be a great help.
18:18Okay. That's, that's regulation. Before I let you go, who, who, who, who's the biggest competitive threat for Enride right
18:24now?
18:25So I think, you know, we, we, we, we're in an ecosystem of, of, of, of other players going after
18:30the, the autonomous, you know, uh, uh, uh, the, the automation of, of, of transportation.
18:36You've got a few listed in Aurora and Kodiak, for example, in, in the U S we've got plus AI
18:40coming out in the, in the markets as well.
18:41So, so I think, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's of course competition in, in terms of, of that, but
18:46to be honest, I think we're at a stage in the industry where, where we as an industry have a
18:51responsibility to try to sort of demonstrate to the world that this is how autonomous is going to be deployed
18:57within a ton, within freight.
18:59And, and, and, and sort of, you know, this is, this is how we're going to be able to drive
19:03this transition.
19:04And we've, many of us chosen different paths, but we all have the end, same end goal of, of increasing
19:09the level of automation.
19:10And I think, you know, we, right now, I think it's about showing the, the rest of the world that
19:15the industry is, is there now, and we can actually start scale deployments where, which is the stage that we're
19:21in at Enride.
19:21And, and, and, and, and and the.
19:21And, and, and.
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