SparkLabs Group, a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, hopes to bring an unidentified tech company to Wall Street.
The firm on Friday filed for a $100 million initial public offering for its Spark I Acquisition, a so-called blank check company, per Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
SparkLabs Group has invested more than 350 startups across 6 continents since the firm’s founding in 2013, according to its website.
Per the SEC filing, Spark I plans on focusing its search on late-stage startups in Asia or a U.S based company with a strong presence in Asia valued at over $1 billion, due to the SparkLabs strong portfolio in the region.
However, the company will not undertake business with companies that have principal business operations in China, including Hong Kong and Macau.
"We are especially interested in companies that have seen recent positive inflection points in their performance due to the adoption of disruptive strategies and business models driven by the changes in the global economy over the last few years during the pandemic," read the SEC filing. "We believe these impacts are driven by permanent changes in consumer behavior towards online, virtual and sharing economies. We believe these changes have been wide reaching in nature and successful companies are present in every horizontal and vertical sector..."
The Business Journal reached out to SparkLabs but did not receive immediate comment.
Spark I intends to apply its units on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol SPKLU and offer each unit at $10.00, according to the SEC record.
Despite the firm's move, companies that have gone public via SPAC mergers since 2020 have typically lost upward of half their value. According to Bloomberg, at least eight SPAC merger companies have filed for bankruptcy this year alone.
SPACs, more so during the pandemic, were seen as an alternative for companies to go public than the traditional IPO. Deals made through this channel saw greater skepticism because it tended to attract companies with little to no revenue.
As unicorn companies find it harder to justify valuations, the Bay Area saw SPAC merger companies take a larger hit. Among 47 Bay Area unicorn companies that went public between 2020 and 2022, 19 have lost that valuation. Of those 19, 13 of them went public through SPAC mergers.
