Inman.com is reporting that the Co-Founder and former CEO of Zillow, Spencer Rascoff is co-chairing a special purpose acquisition company that is actively searching for a tech unicorn to take public. Rascoff’s cleverly named new company Supernova Partners Acquisition Company, Inc plans to find a business “that addresses a large market that creates the opportunity for attractive long-term growth prospects” according to its filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Special purpose acquisition companies (or SPACs) have been in the news a lot recently as both US iBuyer OpenDoor and PropTech company Porch.com have plumped for this option in their journey to becoming publicly traded companies. Airbnb is also not ruling out the possibility of going public via a SPAC either, although it did turn down an offer from noted billionaire investor Bill Ackman’s SPAC earlier this month. Essentially shell companies set up for the sole purpose of merging with another company to go public, the concept of SPACs has been gaining a lot of traction in Silicon Valley over the last couple of years.
As for specifics on companies that Rascoff’s firm is looking at tech-enabled companies, and the filing states that:
“We believe that there are significant opportunities to invest in advantaged growth companies that are well-positioned to benefit from thematic shifts and tech-enabled trends and are valued between approximately $1 billion and $5 billion,”
With Rascoff’s profile and expertise and the advantages that SPACs offer for large well-known tech companies, we may not have to wait long until Supernova Partners Acquisition Company names its first acquisition company.
