Last week featured six announced SPAC deals and featured earnings from several well-known former SPACs. Here is a look back at the week that was SPACs for deals, rumors and headline news all covered on Benzinga’s “SPACs Attack.”
SPAC Deals: Connected vehicle data company Wejo announced a SPAC deal with Virtuoso Acquisition Corp VOSO valuing the company at $800 million. Wejo provides data for customers and automotive manufacturers, including the ways people live, work and travel. Palantir Technologies Inc PLTR and General Motors Company GM are investors.
Areas of expansion for Wejo include traffic management, advertising, fleet management, SaaS solutions, car sharing and rental, payments and roadside assistance. The company works with 17 OEMs and Tier 1 automotive companies.
Wejo is estimating revenue of $4.3 million in fiscal 2021 and $23 million in fiscal 2022.
Alkuri Global Acquisition Corp KURI announced a SPAC merger with digital healthcare company Babylon Health. The deal values the company at a pro forma equity value of $4.2 billion. Babylon covers more than 24 million people across four continents.
Among the investors in Babylon Health is Palantir.
The company is seeking to “re-engineer the $10 trillion global healthcare market to better align systemwide incentives and shift the focus from reactive sick care to preventative healthcare.” The result from Babylon will be reduced costs and better health care for its members.
The company offers Babylon 360, a digital-first care service and Babylon Cloud Services, a self-care tool for patients and clinicians.
Babylon Health has projected revenue of $321 million in fiscal 2021, which would be a 305% year-over-year increase.
The long wait is over to see what company Bill Ackman will acquire with the Pershing Square Tontine Holdings Ltd PSTH SPAC.
Ackman confirmed the company is in the process of acquiring a 10% stake in Universal Music Group, currently owned by Vivendi SE VIVHY and Tencent Holdings ADR TCEHY.
The deal would value Universal Music Group at $42 billion, including UMG being spun-off and publicly listed in Europe. PSTH shareholders will own stakes in three separately traded securities after the completion of the transaction, a pro-rata share of UMG, a pro-rata share of PSTH and one five-year right per share (a SPAR) of Pershing Square SPARC Holdings.
Goldman Sachs valued Universal Music Group at $53 billion earlier this year.
Universal is the largest music company in the world with rights to artists including Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, The Weeknd, Queen, The Beatles and Bob Dylan.
Universal had some of the most played artists on Spotify Technology SA SPOT in the last year and the first quarter of 2021.
Universal Music group competes with Tencent Music Entertainment Group - ADR TME, Sony Music, a unit of Sony Group Corp SONY and Warner Music Group Corp WMG.
UMG had revenue of $9.0 billion in the last fiscal year, up 4.7% year-over-year.
End-to-end data analytics company BigBear.ai announced a SPAC merger with GigCapital4 Inc GIG, valuing the company at a pro forma enterprise value of $1.57 billion.
BigBear.ai provides data analytics for sectors that include the national security and defense community and the commercial sector. The company uses artificial intelligence and machine learning at scale to provide decision support for its customers.
BigBear.ai sees the global AI/ML market growing from $58 billion in 2021 to $310 billion by 2026.
The company is projecting a 2021 revenue of $182 million. BigBear.ai sees revenue growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 43% from 2021 to 2025, supported by a backlog of $500 million.
Related Link: June SPAC Merger Vote Calendar: A Look At Upcoming Votes And Stocks To Watch
SPAC Rumors: According to a report from TechCrunch, autonomous vehicle company Aurora is in talks to go public with Reinvent Technology Partners Y RTPY. The deal could value the company at a range of $12 billion to $20 billion and be announced in the coming weeks.
Reid Hoffman, who is a leader of the Reinvent SPACs, was previously an investor in the company.
Other Aurora investors include Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN, T. Rowe Price and Shell Ventures.
Aurora acquired the self-driving unit of Uber Technologies UBER valuing the combined company at $10 billion. As part of the deal, Uber owns 26% of Aurora.
A partnership was signed by Aurora with Volvo Trucks for autonomous semi-truck development in North America earlier this year.
Headline News: Skillz Inc SKLZ announced an acquisition of Akari to form an integrated eSports advertising platform. Akari reaches 465 million monthly users and could help Skillz expand its reach to target new customers. Akari uses data and machine learning algorithms to help advertisers with industry-leading return on investment.
Joby Aviation, which is going public with Reinvent Technology Partners RTP announced a partnership with REEF Technology and Neighborhood Property Group.
The partnership includes the development of takeoff and landing sites for Joby’s aerial ridesharing service set to launch in 2024.
REEF is the country’s largest parking garage operator and could provide more than 5,000 sites in North America and Europe for Joby Aviation. The initial focus will be on key areas in Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco.
Topps issued first-quarter financial figures and an update on its relationship with Major League Baseball after shares of its SPAC acquirer Mudrick Capital Acquisition CorporationII MUDS fell.
Topps reported first-quarter sales of $166.6 million, a year-over-year increase of 55%. The company said it has a licensing partnership with Topps to offer physical and digital products and the two will continue to release NFT trading card products.
Shares traded down earlier in the week on news of a new MLB NFT partnership with Candy Digital, a new platform from Fanatics, Michael Novogratz and Gary Vee.
The Original Bark Co BARK started trading under its new name and ticker. The company saw shares trade down Monday on a warning issued by the company after ties to a dog dying that the owners linked to a Barkbox product.
Mergers were approved for SPACs Bespoke Capital Acquisition Corp BSPE with Vintage Wine Estates, Jaws Mustang Acquisition Corp JWSM with Cano Health and TS Innovation Acquisitions Corp TSIA with Latch.
Chamath Palihapitiya filed for four new SPACs, this time targeting the biotech sector with partner Suvretta. Each SPAC is seeking to raise $200 million and contains no warrants.
The filings suggest targeting companies that can improve the quality of life including treatment options for the central nervous system, neurodegenerative diseases, psychiatric diseases and addiction.
The four SPACs are Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp DNAA, Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp II DNAB, Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp III DNAC and Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp IV DNAD.
Be sure to tune into "SPACs Attack," Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. EST. Here are the links to the past week’s shows.
Tuesday: Best Mexican Company SPAC? $BWMX
Wednesday: Leading Fintech SPAC
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