Spicewood-based AutoLotto Inc., better known as Lottery.com, plans to go public in a special purpose acquisition company deal with New York-based Trident Acquisitions Corp.
The move would mark a new chapter for Lottery.com, which was founded in 2015. The company, which has mobile and online apps to let people remotely purchase lottery games and see real-time results, works with more than 800 lottery games across 40 countries.
In the first six month of 2021, Lottery.com recorded $14.8 million in revenue, roughly double what it generated in all the year prior, according to an Oct. 18 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The company said the boost in revenue was driven by "increased lottery game sales as a result of large multi-state lottery game jackpots in 2021 as compared to 2020." It also had $7 million in deferred revenue from a transaction last year that made the books this year.
The company also reported a nearly $7.6 million net loss in the first six months of the year, compared with a net loss of nearly $3 million in the same period a year prior.
Lottery.com is led by co-founder and CEO Tony DiMatteo and co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer Matt Clemenson.
The merger with the blank check company was initiated in February this year, and has now been advanced by the SEC. According to the filing, the deal is valued at about $440 million.
“We are extremely pleased to have reached another critical milestone and make additional progress toward becoming a public company,” DiMatteo said in a statement. “Through our strong brand and easy to use online gaming platform, we have been able to achieve excellent growth, and we believe the completion of our business combination will allow us to accelerate the execution of our growth strategy.”
At the end of 2020, Lottery.com had 20 full-time employees and five part-time employees, it told investors in the SEC filing.
The deal is expected to close after a shareholders meeting on Oct. 28. Lottery.com would trade on Nasdaq under the ticker “LTRY.”
Also of interest from the filing: Lottery.com moved its headquarters to Spicewood from San Francisco in February 2018. It now has its sole office at 20808 State Hwy. 71 W., Unit B, although the filing notes its workforce is now remote.
News of Lottery.com's SPAC deal comes shortly after electric dirt bike maker Volcon Inc. went public on the Nasdaq. Volcon, which is delivering its first bikes to consumers this quarter, had aimed to raise $17 million with its traditional IPO.
In June, there were 51 companies on Austin Business Journal's list of publicly traded companies based in the Austin area. Adding Lottery.com and Volcon, plus Tesla Inc., would boost that number to 54.
