$250K may not seem like much for most companies, however, when you only have 92 Million shares outstanding, then this becomes a huge amount. The Market Cap of Alterrus is 4.6 Million. This is extremely low. The Market Cap is a product of the number of shares outstanding times the share price. So if Alterrus has an annual income of 1 Million (which they should do once they double capacity in Vancouver and have a full year to produce green veggies), then their price per share is 1/92 = 0.01 cents per share. When you divide the share price by the earnings you get the PE ratio (Price to earnings ratio) = 0.10 cents/share / 0.01 cents/share = 10. Having a PE ratio of 10 is a very healthy ratio, one that only large established companies usually have. Growing companies have PE's well larger than that, as high as 100. For Alterrus to have a PE ratio of 100, without changing the earnings, they would have a stock share of $1. That's ten to twenty times its current value. And if it is able to establish Verticrops in every large North American city in the next 5 years, they should easily command an annual profit over 10 million, probably in the 20 million range, and growing, which would make their earnings per share ~ $0.10 to 0.20. Moreso with an ever growing Chinese market, there is already a food shortage in China, as many farmers/people are moving to the larger cities instead of farming, and the amount of potential there is huge.
With the success of the Verticrop system in the UK operating since 2008/2009, there is a chance here to get in at the ground floor, however I would think that as soon as Alterrus begins posting earnings (and significant ones due to its small amount of outstanding shares; for example, Facebook has 2.1 Billion shares outstanding. So if Alterrus begins to receive earnings, they wont need much to make their stock price very very desirable. More so, with the majority of fresh vegetable costs being comsumed by extra inventory (spoiling) as well as gas prices to get leafy greens out of California (and the extra price of inert gases, cooled containers and packaging to keep these greens fresher so to say during transport), it will be no time that Alterrus signs an agreement to be a supplier with a Whole Foods or equivalent company. I wouldnt doubt that in 2 years time, the stock price will be somewhere between 1 and 10 dollars!