Hydrogen truck player Hyzon is going public at $2.7 billion valuation

Hyzon Motors, the hydrogen fuel cell truck and bus startup, is going public via reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

Driving the news: Hyzon is merging with Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corp. in a deal that values the New York-based startup at $2.7 billion.

Why it matters: The 2020 craze of electric and hydrogen transportation startups going public is continuing in 2021.

• And it's the latest sign of investors betting on commercial fleet buyers to eventually buy lots and lots of electric and hydrogen-powered big trucks.

The details: The deal will provide the company with $626 million in proceeds to fuel its expansion, the announcement states.

• New and existing investors include BlackRock, Federated, Fidelity, Wellington and Riverstone Energy Limited.
• It comes after the multinational oil-and-gas giant Total SE invested in Hyzon last year.
• Hyzon CEO Craig Knight said heavy truck deliveries to customers in Europe and North America will begin later this year.

Catch up fast: Hyzon said last fall that it plans to deliver several thousand fuel cell trucks and buses over the next three years from its facilities in North America, Europe and Asia.

• The company, a spinoff out of Singapore-based Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, said at the time it had roughly 400 trucks and buses on the roads.

The big picture: Via Bloomberg, which reported a few days ago that the Hyzon SPAC deal was coming...

• "According to BloombergNEF, fuel-cell vehicles could capture as much as 30% of bus-fleet volume globally by 2050 and as much as 75% of heavy-vehicle fleets, with growth driven primarily by demand from China and the European Union."

Go deeper: Trucking into the hydrogen era