Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) in a spate of listing announcements this past week, are setting sights on FinTechs and blockchain-focused combinations.
All in all, the most recent announcements across the SPAC and traditional initial public offerings (IPOs) brings the year-to-date tallies to 58 for the banking segment and 45 for workflow-related verticals.
In an example of blockchain-centered transactions, Blockchain Moon Acquisition Corp. said that it had filed to raise $100 million. The documents with the SEC state that “we intend to seek companies with operations or prospects in the blockchain technology sector … that has leveraged blockchain technology to develop and disrupt current markets in finance, supply-chain, gaming or entertainment. We believe that our potential target will be fundamentally sound and primed to leverage access to the public markets to scale further. However, we may also look at earlier stage companies and/or established companies that exhibit a strong potential use-case for blockchain technology.”
In other SPAC related activity, SPAC FinTech Ecosystem Development began trading this week in its own $100 million offering. The company said in its S-1, “Our goal is to identify and engage in a business combination with a business that has developed or is developing technology that addresses the needs of communities and businesses that require new ways to store and transfer money within developing countries and across international borders.” The company noted that across the globe about 1.7 billion adults remain without access to bank accounts.
Two years after a failed push for an IPO, WeWork went public this week, with shares surging more than 13% on the first day of trading, sparked by a SPAC deal. As noted earlier in the year, the SPAC deal with BowX Acquisition Corp. gives WeWork a $9 billion valuation, including debt. WeWork has expansion plans in place to move beyond its core business through its On Demand, All Access and Platform offerings, per a March announcement.
Platforms Debut
This week, too, marked the debut of Bakkt, the digital assets marketplace, on U.S. exchanges.
In an interview with Karen Webster, Bakkt CEO Gavin Michael said converting digital assets into cash that is spendable (or sendable), he said, could unlock as much as $1.2 trillion in value stored in those assets.
In a recent Bakkt investor presentation, the company notes that its capabilities can be accessed across channels. The firm estimates its total addressable market is as large as $1.6 trillion, where the largest subsegment is tied to gift cards — at $703 billion, followed by cryptos at $564 billion, and then loyalty points/miles at $316 billion. Bakkt said last month that had reached 1 billion points and miles being linked on its app by users since the firm unveiled the app in March.
See: Bakkt’s IPO Signals Connected Economy Growth, Aided by Platforms
In pre-listing activity that stretches beyond U.S. shores, Indian FinTech platform Paytm might skip its pre-IPO plans and accelerate the launch of its $2.2 billion initial public offering to coincide with the end of Diwali Nov. 4, per reports this week. The company is reportedly seeking a valuation of between $20 billion to $22 billion.
Read more: Paytm Might Fast-Track $2.2B IPO Post-Diwali
