Kismet Two (NASDAQ:KAII) has sold all of its sponsor economics to Quadro Sponsor LLC, including 6,250,000 promote shares and 4,400,000 warrants.
The new sponsor will be led by Dimitri Elkin who is signing on as CEO and will also serve as the company’s principal financial and accounting officer. The SPAC’s previous CEO and Chairman Ivan Tavrin is resigning concurrently with the transaction.
Kismet Two raised $230 million in its February 2021 IPO and still has until February 2023 to complete a transaction, while Kismet Three (NASDAQ:KIII) raised $287.5 million under an identical timeline and continues for now to be led by the same team.
Kismet One completed a combination with mobile game developer Nexters Global (NASDAQ:GDEV) in August 2021, but trading of its stock was halted on March 1 alongside other companies either based in Russia or having Russian ownership. It remains halted although it is technically headquartered in Cyprus. Kismet Capital, which is an affiliate sponsor of all three vehicles, is a Moscow-based investment firm founded by Tavrin, a Russian oligarch who formerly led Russian telecom MegaFon.
Incoming Kismet Two CEO Elkin also leads Twelve Seas II (NASDAQ:TWLV), a SPAC that IPO’d in February 2021 and has until March 2023 to complete a transaction. His previous SPAC Twelve Seas I combined with Dubai-based oil storage company Brooge Petroleum and Gas (NASDAQ:BROG) in 2019.
Under his leadership, Kismet Two will continue to seek out a European target in the internet or other technologically-enabled sectors, but will no longer consider companies in Russia or Belarus. This seems an obvious choice in the current sanctions environment but this was a geography that Kismet Two specifically targeted when it IPO’d.
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