SPACs will rule the world, or at least Chamath's future portfolio.
Chamath Palihapitiya, the founder of Social Capital, has already tripled on SPACs, the so-called "blank check" vehicle that brings private companies and launches them on public markets. Its first SPAC bought Virgin Galactic last year, and its second SPAC bought Opendoor this week in a successful deal valuing the instant home selling platform at $ 4.8 billion less in cash. His third SPAC was officially fundraiser in April and has yet to announce a deal.
Now, it looks like it will double its triple. After the bell rang on Wall Street on Friday, the venture capitalist unveiled three new SPAC vehicles to the SEC. Social Capital Edosophy Holdings Corp. IV has a principal value of $ 350 million, Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. V has a principal value of $ 650 million and Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. VI has a principal value of $ 1 billion.
These core values are goals: each SPAC will need to undergo an investor roadshow process and officially raise capital before they can start trying to find an acquisition target. Each SPAC is independent and can share investors or have completely independent investors around the table.
The three new SPACs share similar managers: Palihapitiya himself; Ian Osborne, who manages Hedosophia; Steven Trieu, CFO of Social Capital; and Simon Williams, the administrative director of Hedosophia.
However, each has a different fifth director who perhaps sheds some light on how each SPAC differs in strategy. Nirav Tolia, co-founder and CEO of the popular social network Nextdoor, joins the fourth SPAC. Jay Parikh, a former head of engineering at Facebook who left earlier this year, joins the fifth SPAC. Finally, Dick Costolo, the former Twitter CEO and current venture capitalist, joins the sixth SPAC.
We talked about the accelerated pace of SPACs this year, and that appears in the microcosm here around these Social Capital vehicles. It appears that Palihapitiya and Hedosophia not only have big ambitions for these vehicles, but are increasingly mechanizing the fundraising process and taking advantage of markets that seem enthusiastic about any path to growth.
