By Michael Elkins
Travis Katz, the CEO and president of BrightDrop, a subsidiary of General Motors (NYSE:GM), spoke today at GM’s investor day in New York. BrightDrop is an automotive technology company targeting last-mile delivery customers, supplying products like electric delivery vans, ePallets, and cloud-based software.
Katz was introduced on stage by General Motors president Mark Reuss, where he spoke on the current goals of the business to drive down costs through scale and innovation while rapidly bringing new vehicles to the market. Katz also addressed how recent investments by GM into Ultium, an electric vehicle battery and motor architecture, have given BrightDrop and GM competitive advantages that will drive the company forward.
“Ultium’s power and versatility can help us unlock entirely new markets.” Said Katz. “In the case of BrightDrop, it will allow us to decarbonate one of the fastest growing commercial segments: last-mile delivery, in a way that’s good for the bottom line and for the planet.”
To highlight the power that Ultium brings to the sector, Katz spoke about the record-breaking speed the company has experienced bringing to market from concept to commercialization.
“The product we develop serves companies in two high-growth markets: last mile package delivery and online grocery.” Combined, these two segments represent TAM-$200 million.
With the speed brought to market, and high customer demand, Katz announced that BrightDrop is “on track to generate more than $1B in revenue in 2023.” Just three years after the company was launched in 2021, making BrightDrop one of the fastest companies in history to hit this milestone.
“To put this in perspective, it took Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) ten years to generate $1 billion. We are going to do it in three.”
Travis Katz believes that the company is on a journey and will reach $10B in revenue by the end of the decade.
Shares of GM are down 1.12% near end of day trading on Thursday.