One of the hottest trends on Wall Street has found its way to the fintech market. A SPAC or special purpose acquisition company is a vehicle for companies to go public without having to navigate the arduous and expensive IPO process.
SPACs are shell companies set up by investors with the sole purpose of raising money through an IPO to eventually acquire another company. SPACs have skyrocketed from a small number of deals in 2019 to more than 20 in 2020.
We’ve put together a list of fintech SPACs, current deals in market and completed transactions. Next week we’ll bring together Greg Smith of FT Partners and Brendan Carroll of Victory Park Capital to discuss this trend and what it means for fintech access to public markets.
Here is a list of the current SPACs in the market for a fintech acquisition:
- Deep Lake Capital Acquisition – the company plans to target businesses in the financial technology, ecommerce software, and data and analytics sectors with enterprise values between $750M-$1.5B.
- FinTech Acquisition V – the company plans to target businesses providing technological services to the financial services industry.
- JOFF Fintech Acquisition – a blank check company targeting the financial services industry and Fintech.
- Fusion Acquisition – is rumored to be in talks to acquire MoneyLion, a mobile banking, lending and investment platform.
- Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital – plans to target businesses that provide solutions promoting sustainable development, economic growth, and prosperity, with sectors of potential interest including clean energy, healthcare, financial technology, industrials, mobility, and emerging technology.
- Quantum FinTech Acquisition – targeting businesses providing tech services to the financial sector.
- VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings – intends to merge with a high-growth business in the financial technology industry with an enterprise value of about $800 million to $2 billion.
Here is a list of announced or completed fintech SPAC transactions:
- BankMobile & Megalith Financial – $140mn
- Billtrust & South Mountain Merger Corp. – $1.3bn
- Finance of America & Replay Acquisition Corp. – $1.9bn
- Global Blue & Far Point – GB (NYSE) – $2.6bn
- Katapult & FinServ Acquisition Corp. – $993mn
- Opendoor & IPO 2.0 Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings II – OPEN (Nasdaq) – $4.8bn
- OpenLending & Nebula Acquisition Corporation – LPRO (Nasdaq) – $1.7bn
- Paya & FinTech Acquisition Corp. III – PAYA (Nasdaq) – $1.3bn
- Paysafe & Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. II – PSFE (NYSE) – $9bn
- Payoneer & FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp. – $3.3bn
- Porch & Proptech Acquisition – PRCH (Nasdaq) – $1.08bn
- SoFi & Social Capital Hedosophia Corp V – $8.65bn
- Sunlight Financial & Apollo-Affiliated Spartan Acquisition Corp. II – SPRQ (NYSE) – $1.3bn
- United Wholesale Mortgage & Gores Holdings IV, Inv. – UWMC (Nasdaq) – $16.1bn
SPACs look to be here to stay, at least in the near term. What this craze will do, though, is create a new breed of public companies in fintech. That will raise the profile of our industry and will likely produce a handful of household names.