Market Musings: Softbank's SPAC and Peloton Purchase
Get insight into the biggest news in the public and private markets. Plus startup funding opportunities.
Softbank’s SPAC
SoftBank looks to raise $525 million through its first special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
According to reports, the firm would be looking to acquire a company it previously didn’t invest in and take it public. And sources say after this one, it could add two additional SPACs.
SPACs have been one of the major investing trends this year. They basically allow private companies to get listed on the public market easily.
So basically Softbank is filling an IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission to raise money from the public and then uses that money to buy a private company. Some popular companies that went through the route include DraftKings, Virgin Galactic and Nikola.
SoftBank had written large checks for companies including WeWork and Uber and the firm has been recently synonymous with bankrolling startups with no path to profitability. Also, fingered to be behind mega bets on tech stocks’ call options earlier this year.
What kind of companies would Softbank help bring on to the stock exchange - companies like WeWork?
Peloton Purchase
Peloton acquired fitness equipment maker Precor in a deal worth $420 million. It’s banking on this deal, their biggest ever, to help ramp up production for its machines to meet surging customer demand.
So far, public investors are excited about the news - the stock did 14% in early trading session the day the deal was announced. Peloton, along with other companies that made staying at home in 2020 productive, have enjoyed skyrocketing demands and the problem now is satisfying those demands timely. That’s a good problem!
In Other News
RealPage, a provider of cloud-based software for managing multifamily real estate, is getting acquired for $10.2B.
In another significant SPAC deal, Opendoor, a leading online real estate buyer, made its official stock market debut through Chamath Palipatihiya’s SPAC (the same one that onboarded Virgin Galactic).
Oolu, a Senegalese solar distributor, raised a US$8.5 million Series B investment round.
Digital bank for emerging markets, Umba, announced a US$2 million seed funding round.
Zeepay, a Ghanaian fintech startup, raised a US$940,000 seed funding round.
Opportunities
Village Capital and IFC opened applications for the Future of Work Africa accelerator programme for startups to potentially get US$20,000 in grant funding.
Pitch your startup to angel investors at the live pitch events organised by The Nest (my personal favourite pitch event right now).
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