On Friday, the Canadian company Bruush Oral Care Inc and Indianapolis-based smart-mailbox startup Arrive Technology Inc. announced their intention to merge and go public.

It is anticipated that the deal would finalize in 2024’s first quarter. The combined business will trade on the Nasdaq Capital Market under the ticker number ARRV and operate under the Arrive name.

Following the merger’s completion, Arrive’s current management group, led by CEO Dan O’Toole, will assume leadership of the merged business, which will have its headquarters in Indianapolis. Bruush will choose one member of a board of directors, which will probably consist of five persons, with Arrive choosing the other members.

Although the agreement is set up as an all-stock reverse triangle merger, according to O’Toole, Arrive will receive $10 million from the merger, which is presently included on Bruush’s balance sheet.

“We’ve been working really hard behind the scenes to come to terms on this deal,” O’Toole said. “This gives us funding to continue the vision of what we’re doing.”

Arrive, a company that was founded in 2019 and previously operated under the name DroneDek Corp. before rebranding earlier this year, has created a smart mailbox that is a secure, climate-controlled container for deliveries delivered by robots, couriers, or drones. In addition to its sixteen full-time staff, the company employs a number of contractors.

The Vancouver, British Columbia-based online retailer Bruush specializes in selling electric toothbrushes. The business was established in 2018 and went public in 2022. 11 people were on contracts with the company as of October 2022, based on a March 2022 Bruush public filing.

Arrive will not hire any Bruush staff as a result of the merger, according to O’Toole, but he plans to hire more staff in 2024, maybe tripling the number of employees the company employs now in the course of the following year.

O’Toole added that Arrive will gain additional advantages from the agreement. According to him, Arrive’s public listing will increase its visibility to prospective clients and investors and offer liquidity to its current investors. Through three crowdfunding efforts and a separate campaign for accredited investors, Arrive has raised around $9 million to date.

“Taking an investment from anybody, it’s really important that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” O’Toole said. “If you just take money from investors and you never get them where they can get their money back or their liquidity, it’s a non-starter.”

Bruush intends to execute a reverse stock split between a 6-for-1 and a 200-for-1 ratio prior to the merger closing. One strategy a business can use to raise the value of its current shares is to reverse stock split. For example, a 10-for-1 split would result in one share valued at $10 and ten shares valued at $1 each.

Shareholders of Arrive will swap those shares for shares in the newly combined business after the merger concludes.

Bruush shares opened at 17 cents a share on Thursday, but by midmorning, they were trading at 24.3 cents, having risen to 33.7 cents in premarket trade.