Reinvent Technology Partners, which is also a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), filed a USD 600 million initial public offering (IPO). The founders are, namely, Reid Hoffman, famed investor and serial entrepreneur; Mark Pincus, Zynga Founder; and Michael Thompson, veteran hedge fund manager.

Previously, the company had plans to merge with a technology company. It also plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol RTP.U. And, regarding the fundraising step, the capital will move into the blind trust until the management team decides about the company it wants to acquire finally.

SPACs are the blank-check companies that are created to merge or acquire other companies. In the year 2020, these companies have become a go-to route for venture-backed companies to go public without doing the IPO (initial public offering). Examples of such companies are Canoo, Fisker Inc., Nikola Motor, and Lordstown Motors.

According to the report by Axios, Pincus and Thompson with Hoffman were raising USD 700 million for a new investment fund, which planned to focus on publicly traded tech companies with the intent of strategic restructuring.

The filing included the following letter from Hoffman and Pincus:

“We believe there is a need for a new, additional type of venture capital that helps companies at scale pursue innovation and step function growth long past their IPOs.

Throughout our careers as entrepreneurs, investors, and directors, we have been students of why some tech companies sustain as market leaders. Often people view these companies from the outside in as perfect, uninterrupted growth stories that were almost pre-ordained. However, we realize that behind these mythical growth stories are many hard fought cycles of invention and reinvention. Invention is when a company builds a new product and achieves growth in an adjacent market, such as Amazon developing AWS. Reinvention is when a company has to adapt its core products and services to continue growing in an existing market, as Netflix did moving from DVDs to streaming.

For many public tech companies — especially mid-cap sized — these cycles can prove challenging to navigate while maintaining investor alignment. We went through our own invention and reinvention cycles while public at Zynga and LinkedIn, and it wasn’t easy.

We are excited to be a new kind of venture capital partner at the table for one of the many tech companies set to go public over the next few years and to help it maintain a growth mindset, be bold, and go for it in the face of pressure to deliver quarterly results.

We hope our experience, ideas, and insights can make a difference as we partner with a founder and CEO as they build a market-leading company that delivers products and services that matter in people’s lives.” Source: Techcrunch.com