Below is a daily summary of links to the latest SPAC news and rumors gathered across the web.
Latest SPAC News: Polestar doubles revenue, SeatGeek raises $238M after cancelling SPAC deal, and crypto miner PrimeBlock’s CEO leaves firm
Polestar revenue doubles as it rides electric car boom
Electric vehicle maker Polestar (NASDAQ: PSNY) said on Thursday that its revenue nearly doubled in the first half of 2022 on soaring demand and that it may have to raise its prices further if material costs continue to rise.
“We continue to have a very strong order book,” Chief Financial Officer Johan Malmqvist told Reuters. “In regards to inflationary pressures, we have increased prices and that is something that we are closely monitoring to see if there’s a need to take additional actions to protect our margins.”
Polestar, which listed on the Nasdaq in June via a merger with a Gores Guggenheim, has expanded into new markets this year but the cost of doing so meant it reported a net loss of $502.7 million for January-June, up from a $368.2 million loss a year earlier.
READSeatGeek snaps $238M after cancelling SPAC deal
New York-based SeatGeek, a mobile ticketing platform, has raised $238M after abandoning plans to go public. Long-time investor Accel led the round privately as part of a Series E funding round, with participation from Wellington Management, Arctos Sports Partners, and Ryan Smith, founder and executive chairman of Qualtrics and founder of Smith Entertainment Group (SEG), which includes the Utah Jazz.
SeatGeek is now valued at around $1.2B, down from as much as $2B in its proposed SPAC merger deal.
RedBall Acquisition Corp. (NYSE:RBAC) announced in June that it had mutually terminated its combination agreement with ticket marketplace SeatGeek.
READCrypto Miner PrimeBlock’s CEO Has Left Firm After Cancelled SPAC Deal
The CEO of crypto miner PrimeBlock, which canceled a merger with 10X Capital Venture Acquisition Corp. II (VCXA) that would’ve made it a public company, has left the firm, according to two people familiar with the move.
Gaurav Budhrani, the now-former CEO, was with PrimeBlock for about a year, according to his LinkedIn profile. He had come aboard from Goldman Sachs (GS), where he’d spent more than a decade, most recently as a vice president who helped run crypto investment banking.
Audit Regulator Sees Room to Improve Going Concern, SPAC Reviews
Audit firms fell short in their going concern reviews and some struggled with testing the financial statements of blank-check companies, the US audit regulator said in a report Wednesday.
Inspectors with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board reviewed 40 audits as part of its 2021 cross-firm reviews, which target a few audit areas across a range of firms. PCAOB staff looked at fraud risks and cash in addition to going concern evaluations and quarterly reviews of SPACs, according to a recap of the reviews the board released.
Despite a week of general pull-backs in the market, fintech firm Ibotta (NYSE:IBTA) nonetheless took the dive and had a good week debuting via a traditional IPO in the choppy waters. The company, which provides app-based consumer cashback discounts on purchases, priced its IPO at $88, above its proposed range of $76 to $84, and...
At the SPAC of Dawn Happy Friday! SPACInsider has unveiled new presets on SPAC Performance accessible via the Data drop-down to easily sort for the highest and lowest performing active SPACs and de-SPACs. On the de-SPAC side, Vertiv (NYSE:VRT) continues to be well ahead of the pack, logging a 710% return by share price adjusted...
AGBA (NASDAQ:AGBA) stock is up over +90% this morning following a +211% premarket spike on news it has signed a definitive agreement to combine with social streaming video platform Triller. AGBA, the company itself, was formed by the $555 million combination between a SPAC of the same name and TAG Companies, a financial services firm...
At the SPAC of Dawn Since closing its combination with DHC last month, AI customer engagement firm BEN (NASDAQ:BNAI) has rolled out new partnerships with call center and healthcare clients. And, while it faces a fair bit of competition in the chatbot realm, several high-profile institutions have demonstrated that creating one that provides useful services...
Blue Ocean (NASDAQ:BOCN) provided significantly more texture today in the presentation for its $275 million combination with Asian digital media group TNL Mediagene, which it expects to hit profitability in the second half of the year despite a slight shakeup in financing for the transaction. The first big update in the first investor deck is...