SPACInsider

We spoke with real estate investment marketplace Appreciate, which announced a $416 million deal with PropTech Investment Corp II (Nasdaq: PTIC) in May. CEO Chris Laurence and President Kevin Ortner explain how they built a unique end-to-end platform for real estate investors looking to buy properties to rent out far afield from their local market, be they institutions or moms and pops. They also give us the lowdown on what the single-family rental market looks like from inside the machine and how capital can best be put to work in the current climate. PropTech II’s Co-CEO and CFO M. Joseph Beck also joins to walk us through how the SPACs’ prolific team has shifted criteria to match the times. Give it a listen

This week, we speak with Raj Suri, Founder and CEO of Presto. Presto entered into a $634 million combination agreement with Ventoux CCM Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:VTAQ) in November 2021. If you’ve ordered a fast-food meal using a smart touch screen or talking to a voice AI recently, there’s a good chance Presto made that order happen. The company has developed both hardware and software that serve to automate quick-service ordering and it counts some of America’s biggest fast-food chains among its clients. Raj talks about how Presto plans to expand within its clients' chains and what the future of automated restaurants looks like. He also speaks to how both Presto and Ventoux have ridden out the difficult market conditions and why Presto could serve as a hedge stock against inflation once the deal closes.  

This week, we speak with Stu Landesberg, Founder and CEO of Grove Collaborative (NYSE:GROV). Grove produces a line of sustainable and plastic-free home and personal care goods and it closed a $1.5 billion combination with Virgin Group Acquisition Corp. II in June.  Stu talks about how getting to cleaner home goods isn’t just about ingredients, but rethinking everything down to whether they are a liquid or a solid. He gets into how much of this innovation comes from the feedback loop Grove has with its DTC customers.  He also reflects on Grove’s decision to go for a SPAC deal now that the company is on the other end of it, and what advice he has for fellow CEOs fielding SPAC calls today.

This week, we speak with Jan-Christopher Nugent, Co-Founder and CEO of Nogin and Jon Huberman, Chairman, CEO and CFO of Software Acquisition Group Inc. III. The two announced a $658 million combination agreement in February of 2022. Nogin provides commerce-as-a-service for ecommerce clients – putting their marketing, payments and shipping process all under a single umbrella. Jan talks about how the current market conditions have driven a greater demand for efficiencies among ecommerce players, while Jon describes how the Software SPAC team has shifted strategy with the changing market tides in its third combination since 2020.

This week we speak with Scott Ford, CEO and Co-founder of Westrock Coffee. Westrock entered into a $1.1 billion combination agreement with Riverview Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: RVAC) in April of 2022, and has grown into the #1 wholesale provider of coffee and tea to US restaurants.  Westrock is now looking to use its SPAC deal to make a big move into cold brew, made in the United States. Scott explains how the company has worked to insulate itself from supply chain and commodity disruptions and why a SPAC deal was preferable to an IPO or more trips to the private equity watering hole.

This week, we speak with Dr. Denis Phares, CEO of Dragonfly Energy and Jonas Grossman, CEO and President of Chardan NexTech Acquisition 2 Corp. (Nasdaq: CNTQ). The two announced a $501 million combination agreement in May.  Dragonfly has been attacking a less-talked-about corner of the energy storage market by providing lithium-ion solutions for boats, RVs and off-grid homes. Although this has been profitable work for several years running, Dragonfly’s operations in this niche have always been designed to set the stage for a much bigger technological and organizational transition into solid state systems.  We talk about the areas of the market where outdated lead acid batteries still dominate, while Jonas gives us the SPAC-side view on what teams should be looking for in the current market conditions.  

This week, we speak with Anil Mathews, Founder and CEO of Near. Near announced a $754 million combination agreement with KludeIn I Acquisition Corp (Nasdaq: INKA), in May of this year. We discuss how Near has built a data platform capable of tracking the activity of 1.6 billion consumers and how it has grown this platform geographically from the global East to West. Anil also describes the work that goes into protecting and enriching this data to ensure regulatory compliance and drive further insights. He also talks about what it has been like to pull together a SPAC deal amid the market’s shifting tides and how Near plans to put its new share and cash capital to use.

On this special edition, SPACInsider’s founder Kristi Marvin and Nick Clayton speak with Jim Zukin, Chairman and Founder of Zukin Certification Services.  Zukin Certification Services has recently expanded its offerings from examining the public-company readiness of potential SPAC targets to providing a reasonable basis review for companies’ financial projections. Jim describes why he thinks SEC has essentially invented a new service with its proposed SPAC rule changes and how such reviews of company projections could become a standard practice in other M&A transactions. Give it a listen

This week, we speak with Kirk Taylor, President and CFO of American Acquisition Opportunity Inc. It announced a $97 million combination agreement with Royalty Management Corporation in June. Royalty Management has pulled together a range of unique financing deals that give it royalties on business activities ranging from water treatment utilities to coal exploration and land renewal. Kirk discusses how the available PIPE terms for SPACs have changed over the past year, and how redemptions turned from an impediment to an unexpected advantage as his SPAC sought out a right-sized target.

This week, we speak with Zvi Schreiber, CEO of Freightos, and Ezra Gardner, CEO of Gesher I Acquisition Corp. The two companies entered into a $436 million business combination last month. Freightos provides a freight-shipping marketplace that works much like a flight-booking website. Zvi Schreiber talks about why the freight shipping space remains largely un-digitized and how the visibility his digital platform has achieved has spun into financial derivatives and sustainability metrics. Ezra also gets into why Gesher I made sure early in its process that it lined up enough committed capital for its transaction, and what advice he has for other SPAC teams in the current climate.