New Logistics-Focused SPAC LIT Is Stacked With Top Dealmakers

LIT started trading Friday morning on the NASDAQ

Friday morning, Logistics Innovation Technologies Corp., a newly listed special acquisition company (SPAC), began trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker LITTU. The blank check company exists solely for the purpose of finding a private company to merge with and bring public. It has two years to make a deal or return investors' capital.

The SPAC will offer 30 million shares priced at $11.50, and the sole bookrunner, Guggenheim Securities, has the option to buy an additional 4.5 million shares at the same price within 45 days. 

Logistics Innovation Technologies (or LIT) is notable for two reasons: its transportation and logistics-focused team and the size of the deal at a time when some Wall Street analysts have said the 2021 SPAC boom is already past its peak.

Jake Medwell, founding partner at Austin, Texas-based venture capital firm 8VC, put the deal and team together. Crowned in 2020 by Pitchbook as the most active FreightTech startup investor, 8VC has invested in companies including Flexport, KeepTruckin, Deliverr, project44, Platform Science and FreightWaves. He serves as senior adviser to LIT.

Medwell told FreightWaves that "we think this is the best time for the industry" and that public investors lacked ways to gain exposure to high-growth technology companies in the logistics sector. Medwell emphasized that LIT would not pursue an early-stage, pre-revenue company pinning its hopes on "frontier technology," but was shopping for scaling companies that could be attractive to public equities markets. 

LIT's team, Medwell said, combined the best of private market access and public market experience in transportation and logistics. 8VC is known in the FreightTech space for bringing together key players in the industry to invite-only retreats at its Napa Valley property to discuss the future of logistics. 

LIT's chief executive officer is Alan Gershenhorn, who was executive vice president and chief commercial officer at UPS. Gershenhorn led UPS' acquisition of Coyote Logistics in 2015 and joined 8VC as an adviser in the fall of 2018. Chris Sultemeier, the former president and chief executive officer of Walmart Transportation, serves on LIT's board of directors, as well as former C.H. Robinson chief financial officer Andy Clarke and Bruno Sidler, former chief executive officer of Panalpina.

Michael McLary, chief executive officer of Ascend Transportation and former president of Truckload Brokerage for North America at Amazon, will join Medwell as an advisor. All the members of the team also serve as advisors to 8VC.

"Our SPAC, Logistics Innovation Technologies, is hyper-focused on partnering with a company that is addressing the massive opportunity in the current digital transformation underway across the supply chain from source to last-mile delivery," Gershenhorn said. "LIT has assembled an accomplished group of operators and investment professionals with extensive track records of successfully leading and investing in transportation, logistics and technology businesses. This team has a deep understanding of the transformation that is underway in the logistics industry and powerful visibility into the slew of new logtech companies and incumbents alike that are best addressing this opportunity."

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